Asteroseismic Modeling of 1,153 Kepler Red Giant Branch Stars: Improved Stellar Parameters with Gravity-Mode Period Spacings and Luminosity Constraints

This paper reports estimated stellar parameters of 1,153 Kepler red giant branch stars determined with asteroseismic modeling. We use radial-mode oscillation frequencies, gravity-mode period spacings, Gaia luminosities, and spectroscopic data to characterize these stars. Compared with previous studies, we find that the two additional observed constraints, i.e., the gravity-mode period spacing and luminosity, significantly improve the precision of fundamental stellar parameters. The typical uncertainties are 2.9% for the mass, 11% for the age, 1.0% for the radius, 0.0039 dex for the surface gravity, and 0.5\% for the helium core mass, making this the best-characterized large sample of red-giant stars available to date. With better characterizations for these red giants, we recalibrate the seismic scaling relations and study the surface term on the red-giant branch. We confirm that the surface term depends on the surface gravity and effective temperature, but there is no significant correlation with metallicity.Comment: Accepted by Ap

Reaching the last mile: best practices in leveraging the power of ICTs to communicate climate services to farmers at scale

This report reviews key ICTs for Development (ICT4D) Programs, Innovations and Information Exchange Platforms which are experimented within South Asia to explore the use and scale-ability of these innovative approaches to other parts of Africa and the developing world. Learning from the pioneering experiences of pilot projects across India and Africa in ICT development, we assess the potential ICTs offer to not only communicate climate information and related advisory services but also to build capacity and increase the resilience of rural smallholders. It is our hope that such South-South learning can pave the way for improved cross-regional experience sharing to tackle common challenges in reaching ‘the last mile’ with salient rural extension services, including climate information services

Locally constrained curvature flows and geometric inequalities in hyperbolic space

In this paper, we first study the locally constrained curvature flow of hypersurfaces in hyperbolic space, which was introduced by Brendle, Guan and Li [7]. This flow preserves the $m$th quermassintegral and decreases $(m+1)$th quermassintegral, so the convergence of the flow yields sharp Alexandrov-Fenchel type inequalities in hyperbolic space. Some special cases have been studied in [7]. In the first part of this paper, we show that h-convexity of the hypersurface is preserved along the flow and then the smooth convergence of the flow for h-convex hypersurfaces follows. We then apply this result to establish some new sharp geometric inequalities comparing the integral of $k$th Gauss-Bonnet curvature of a smooth h-convex hypersurface to its $m$th quermassintegral (for $0\leq m\leq 2k+1\leq n$), and comparing the weighted integral of $k$th mean curvature to its $m$th quermassintegral (for $0\leq m\leq k\leq n$). In particular, we give an affirmative answer to a conjecture proposed by Ge, Wang and Wu in 2015. In the second part of this paper, we introduce a new locally constrained curvature flow using the shifted principal curvatures. This is natural in the context of h-convexity. We prove the smooth convergence to a geodesic sphere of the flow for h-convex hypersurfaces, and provide a new proof of the geometric inequalities proved by Andrews, Chen and the third author of this paper in 2018. We also prove a family of new sharp inequalities involving the weighted integral of $k$th shifted mean curvature for h-convex hypersurfaces, which as application implies a higher order analogue of Brendle, Hung and Wang's [8] inequality.Comment: 38 pages, accepted version for Mathematische Annalen, add Corollary 1.10 to describe the application of the new locally constrained flow (1.11

Analysis of the Accumulation of Major Aroma Components in Japanese Apricot Fruit (Prunus mume Siebold et Zucc.) during Ripening

The major characteristic aroma components of Japanese apricot fruit grown in Dayi county, Sichuan Province were determined by headspace solid-phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS) based on odor activity values (OAVs). The pattern of accumulation of the major aroma components was investigated by analysis of aroma precursors and their correlation with climate factors was analyzed. The results showed that ethyl butyrate, β-myrcene, ethyl 3-methyl-butyrate, benzaldehyde and nonanal were the major characteristic aroma substances of Japanese apricot fruit, and C6 and C9 compounds were the major aroma components. C6 aroma substances had a high correlation with unsaturated fatty acid precursors. There was a positive correlation between the synthesis of C6 and C9 aroma substances. Climate significantly affected aroma accumulation during fruit ripening. Precipitation was the key factor affecting the content of C6 substances in the early ripening stage, mainly affecting the accumulation of bound hexenol. At the late stage of maturity, air temperature had a great influence on the content of free substances such as hexanol and hexanoic acid. These results provide a basis for follow-up research to analyze the flavor and quality of processed Japanese apricot fruit, explore the effects of climate factors on Japanese apricot fruit and its products, and identify the production region of raw materials and processed products for flavor evaluation

Transcription factor-pathway co-expression analysis reveals cooperation between SP1 and ESR1 on dysregulating cell cycle arrest in non-hyperdiploid multiple myeloma

Multiple myeloma is a hematological cancer of plasma B-cells and remains incurable. Two major subtypes of myeloma, hyperdiploid (HMM) and non-hyperdiploid myeloma (NHMM), have distinct chromosomal alterations and different survival outcomes. Transcription factors (TrFs) have been implicated in myeloma oncogenesis but their dysregulation in myeloma subtypes are less studied. Here we develop a TrF-pathway co-expression analysis to identify altered co-expression between two sample types. We apply the method to the two myeloma subtypes and the cell cycle arrest pathway, which is significantly differentially expressed between the two subtypes. We find that TrFs MYC, NF-κB and HOXA9 have significantly lower co-expression with cell cycle arrest in HMM, co-occurring with their over-activation in HMM. In contrast, TrFs ESR1, SP1 and E2F1 have significantly lower co-expression with cell cycle arrest in NHMM. SP1 ChIP targets are enriched by cell cycle arrest genes. These results motivate a cooperation model of ESR1 and SP1 in regulating cell cycle arrest, and a hypothesis that their over-activation in NHMM disrupts proper regulation of cell cycle arrest. Co-targeting ESR1 and SP1 shows a synergistic effect on inhibiting myeloma proliferation in NHMM cell lines. Therefore, studying TrF-pathway co-expression dysregulation in human cancers facilitates forming novel hypotheses towards clinical utility