Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Planning Method of Eco-environment Restoration Based on Enlarging Terrace and De-farming in Loess Hilly Region—A Case Study of Yangou Catchment

After expatiating the guiding ideology, contents, standards and principles of eco-environment restoration based on enlarging terrace and de-farming, this paper discussed the planning method and technical flow of enlarging terrace and garden plot in a small catchment of loess hilly region by means of GIS spatial analysis technology, and then the planning method was applied in Yangou catchment. The result showed that it is practicabl, and the areas of newly-built terrace and garden plot in Yangou catchment are at least 295.06 and 4.61 hm2, so that the areas of basic farmland and garden plot reach 359.23 and 622.69 hm2. After the land use structure is regulated, the forest coverage is 48.87%, and the permanent vegetation coverage is about 75% in Yangou catchment, while sediment reduction benefit is above 80% in slope land. In agricultural development, Yangou catchment can yield 1 645.13 tons of food supplies, above 9 340 tons of apples, and can feed 7 500 sheep every year

The Population Carrying Capacity of Water Resources in Yulin City

Assessing the water resource carrying capacity is beneficial for measuring the scale of industry and population agglomeration, and also avoiding the contradiction between increasing people and decreasing available water resource, due to the expansion of industry and city size. Based on the prediction model of optimum population development size, by using hydrological data, also with the demographic data from 1956 to 2010, this article analyzes and predicts the urban moderate scale under the limit of the water resource in the future of Yulin City by GIS. The main conclusions are as follows. There is growing tendency of water resources overloading. According to the result of model simulation, by 2015, the overload rate of population size will be 1.04. By 2020, the overload rate of population size will grow up to 1.08. The oversized population mainly comes from cities and towns. The overload rate for cities and towns in 2015 and 2020 is 1.89 and 1.73, respectively. With the expansion of cities and industries, suburban areas could have a great potential for carrying population, because lots of suburban people may move to cities and towns according to prediction. In view of the above-mentioned facts, the population size should be controlled in a reasonable range

Identifying Ecological Red Lines: A Case Study of the Coast in Liaoning Province

The global decline in estuarine and coastal ecosystems is affecting critical ecosystem services. The spatial agglomeration of population, industries and resources has led to the emergence of regionally-specific ecological problems. Therefore, identifying “ecological red lines”, based on specific natural and environmental features, could help to differentiate the economic development and ecological protection directions or potentials of different regions in future. The aim of this case study is to define the ecological red line in the coastal zone of Liaoning Province, China, by evaluating the ecological importance and environmental stress in its marine and terrestrial ecosystems. For this purpose, the ecological importance of this area was first classified into four conservation indices (species, wetland, water and coast and islands) and assigned values of 5, 3 and 1 for indications of high, moderate and minor importance. In the meantime, environmental stress was also classified into four indices (water environment, salinization, soil erosion and erosion of coasts and islands) and assigned values of 5, 3 and 1 for indications of high, moderate and low stress, respectively. Then, based on an overlay analysis and evaluation of the above results, we defined two grades of ecological red line zones. Grade I ecological red line zones contain the areas with critical and diverse ecosystem services, areas of high importance for species conservation and nature reserves, as well as ecologically-vulnerable and sensitive areas. It is important in these areas to maintain the biological diversity and to improve the quality of the ecological environment, which should be strictly protected and explicitly controlled. Grade II ecological red line zones display areas with minimum requirements for maintaining the basic needs of a livable environment and human health, moderate to minor levels of ecological importance and high to moderate levels of environmental stress. To better control and protect such ecological red lines, setting up an ecological inventory through remote sensing satellites and ground-level monitoring and appraising the effectiveness of dynamical protection are highly recommended

Bang-bang property for time optimal control of semilinear heat equation

International audienceThis paper studies the bang-bang property for time optimal controls governed by semilinear heat equation in a bounded domain with control acting locally in a subset. Also, we present the null controllability cost for semilinear heat equation and an observability estimate from a positive measurable set in time for the linear heat equation with potential

The Models for the Development of Specialty Agriculture in the Hilly Areas of Southern Ningxia: Are they Truly Effective?

The development of specialty agriculture is of great significance to western China’s agricultural structure adjustment, and it’s an essential way for the construction of ecological agriculture in Southern Ningxia mountainous area. This paper makes a summary about the development status of specialty agriculture in Southern Ningxia Mountainous Area and put forward the basic benefit goal and problems needing attention. On this basis, the paper studies the development pattern of specialty agriculture in Southern Ningxia Mountainous Area from the aspects of production factors and industry. This paper suggests that the development pattern of specialty agriculture in Southern Ningxia Mountainous Area should combine the regional agricultural pattern and innovative organization structure pattern, demonstration agriculture and market-directing pattern, engineering agricultural pattern and enterprise-driven pattern. The development of specialty agriculture in Southern Ningxia Mountainous Area should promote the three patterns, in order to achieve the construction of ecological agriculture and agricultural structure adjustment

Tourists’ Perception of Haze Pollution and the Potential Impacts on Travel: Reshaping the Features of Tourism Seasonality in Beijing, China

Haze pollution has worsened and has received close attention by news agencies in the past two years. This type of environmental pollution might have a great effect on tourism image and the entire tourism industry of a destination. This study aimed to reveal the potential impacts of haze pollution on the tourism industry. Based on a case study in Beijing using questionnaires for potential tourists, awareness of haze pollution, impacts of haze pollution on travel and attitudes toward the impacts were discussed. The results indicated that haze pollution has a considerable potential impact on travel, and there are distinct differences among travel elements and tourism market segments. Due to its impacts, haze pollution could be taken into account in tourists’ decision-making processes, causing a portion of potential tourists to cancel tourism plans. As a result, tourist arrivals to similar destinations could decrease by a small margin, but the most significant impact could be on the temporal distribution of tourist arrivals, namely tourism seasonality, due to tourists’ “avoiding” psychology

Synthesis and photophysical properties of ruthenium(ii) polyimine complexes decorated with flavin

A bipyridine ruthenium(ii) complex (Ru-1) with a flavin moiety connected to one of the bipyridine ligands via an acetylene bond was designed and synthesized, and its photophysical properties were investigated. Compared with the tris(bipyridine) Ru(ii) complex (Ru-0), which has an extinction coefficient epsilon = 1.36 x 10(4) M-1 cm(-1) at 453 nm, the introduction of the flavin moiety endows Ru-1 with strong absorption in the visible range (epsilon = 2.34 x 10(4) M-1 cm(-1) at 456 nm). Furthermore, Ru-1 exhibits phosphorescence ((em) = 643 nm, phi(P) = 1%, (P) = 1.32 s at 293 K and 4.53 s at 77 K). We propose that the emission of Ru-1 originates from the low lying triplet excited state of (IL)-I-3 according to the time-resolved transient difference absorption spectra, the calculated T-1 spin density and the T-1 thermo-vibration modes localized on the flavin-decorated bipyridine ligand. This is the first time that the phosphorescence of flavin was observed within Ru(ii) complexes. Consequently, Ru-1 was used for triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion, showing a reasonable quantum yield of 0.7% with respect to the phosphorescence quantum yield of 1%. These findings pave the way for the rational design of phosphorescence transition metal complexes. Also, further approaches that may improve the performance of flavin-decorated Ru(ii) bipyridine complexes are proposed