Identifying Intraspecific Variation in Venom Yield of Chinese Cobra (Naja atra) from Ten Populations in Mainland China

Detailed information on venom yield is helpful in preparing antivenoms and treating snakebites, but such information is lacking for many species of venomous snakes. The Chinese cobra (Naja atra) is a large sized, venomous snake commonly found in southeastern China, where it causes a heavy burden of snakebites. To examine the effects of various factors (morphology, sex, age, season, and geographical origin) on the venom yield in this snake, we collected venom samples of 446 individuals (426 adults and 20 neonates) from 10 populations of N. atra over an eight-year period. We used two variables, lyophilized venom mass (venom yield) and solid content of venom (% solids), to quantify the venom yield. We used linear regression analysis to check if venom yield was related to morphological factors, one-way ANOVA and one-way ANCOVA to detect the sexual, ontogenetic, and geographic variation in venom yield, and repeated-measures ANOVA to examine seasonal shifts in venom yield. Our results indicate that venom yield of N. atra is positively related to the morphological traits examined, with male snakes expelling more venom than females. Venom yield in N. atra was age-related, with elder snakes always expelling more venom than younger ones. Geographic variation in venom yield was also observed, while seasonal variation was not. The solid content of venom was lower in males than in females, but this was not related to morphology, season, age, or geography. Our findings suggest that venom yield in N. atra is influenced by multiple factors, as well as by the interactions among these factors

Brief Analysis of Social Capital Application in Community Participatory Governance from the Perspective of NIMBY

Social governance is a hot topic in today's society. From the "social management" to "social governance", the latter more embodies the diversity of participation, which means based on an equal partnership, government, social organizations, enterprises, communities, individuals and other actors regulate and manage social affairs, social organizations and social life according to the law, and ultimately maximize the public interest. Community is a place where social situation, public opinion, and social basic contradictions and problems are centrally reflected, so it is an important part of society, the most basic content of the social organism and the epitome of macro society. Thus, the important part of social governance is the community governance. At the same time, NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) is the public's reaction to the event and the problem in the social governance. Lots of things from that have reference significance for the community governance. Therefore, this paper, from the perspective of NIMBY, explores how to use social capital and maximize the benefits by referring Chinese and other countries’ successful experience via literature research, case analysis and comparative method, so as to better achieve the community participatory governance in China

Local buckling resistances of cold-formed high-strength steel SHS and RHS with varying corner radius

This paper reports an experimental and numerical study of the cross-sectional behaviour of cold-formed high-strength steel (HSS) square and rectangular hollow section (SHS and RHS) members. Six stub column tests, six 3-point and three 4-point bending tests have been carried out, followed by the development of accurate finite element (FE) models and a parametric study. Based on the test and FE results, the design rules for slender cross-sections in European, American, Australian and Chinese standards and the GSRM method have been assessed via reliability analyses. A new equation for deriving the cross-sectional slenderness of SHS and RHS considering the influence of corner radius and new area reduction factors for designing slender cold-formed S900 (and above) SHS and RHS have also been propose

Establish real-time monitoring models of cotton aphid quantity based on different leaf positions in cotton seedlings

Cotton aphids, Aphis gossypii glover, are major pest threats to cotton plants, leading to quality and yield loss of cotton. Rapid and accurate evaluation on the occurrence and quantity of cotton aphids can help precision management and treatment of cotton aphids. The occurrence rules of cotton aphids on different leaf positions in cotton seedling stage for two cultivars of cotton were studied. The quantity of cotton aphids in the whole cotton seedlings were predicted based on the single leaf cotton aphid quantity. The correlation analysis results showed that cotton aphids of single leaf were significantly and positively correlated with the infected time, the all leaves of the whole plant, the whole plant contained all leaves and branches. The variance analysis results showed that cotton aphids of single leaf were significant difference with the extension of infected time. Based on different leaf positions, monitoring models were constructed respectively. The modelling set’s determination coefficient of ‘Xinluzao-45’ was greater than 0.8, while ‘Lumainyan-24’ was greater than 0.6. The best monitoring leaf position was the third for ‘Xinluzao-45’, the sixth for ‘Lumianyan-24’. From the data analysis, we can realize that it is feasible to construct a monitoring model based on the occurrence of cotton aphid in one leaf in cotton seedling, and different cotton varieties have different leaf positions. This will greatly reduce the investment of manpower and time

LLM-FuncMapper: Function Identification for Interpreting Complex Clauses in Building Codes via LLM

As a vital stage of automated rule checking (ARC), rule interpretation of regulatory texts requires considerable effort. However, interpreting regulatory clauses with implicit properties or complex computational logic is still challenging due to the lack of domain knowledge and limited expressibility of conventional logic representations. Thus, LLM-FuncMapper, an approach to identifying predefined functions needed to interpret various regulatory clauses based on the large language model (LLM), is proposed. First, by systematically analysis of building codes, a series of atomic functions are defined to capture shared computational logics of implicit properties and complex constraints, creating a database of common blocks for interpreting regulatory clauses. Then, a prompt template with the chain of thought is developed and further enhanced with a classification-based tuning strategy, to enable common LLMs for effective function identification. Finally, the proposed approach is validated with statistical analysis, experiments, and proof of concept. Statistical analysis reveals a long-tail distribution and high expressibility of the developed function database, with which almost 100% of computer-processible clauses can be interpreted and represented as computer-executable codes. Experiments show that LLM-FuncMapper achieve promising results in identifying relevant predefined functions for rule interpretation. Further proof of concept in automated rule interpretation also demonstrates the possibility of LLM-FuncMapper in interpreting complex regulatory clauses. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first attempt to introduce LLM for understanding and interpreting complex regulatory clauses, which may shed light on further adoption of LLM in the construction domain

Numerical modelling of cooperative and noncooperative three transboundary pollution problems under learning by doing in Three Gorges Reservoir Area

In this paper, we investigate cooperative and noncooperative three transboundary pollution problems in Three Gorges Reservoir Area where emission permits trading and abatement costs under learning by doing are considered. The abatement cost depends on two key factors: the level of pollution abatement and the experience of using pollution abatement technology. We use the optimal control theory to study the optimal emission paths and the optimal pollution abatement strategies under cooperative and noncooperative three transboundary pollution problems, respectively. By using the actual economic data of Wanzhou District, Kaizhou District and Yunyang County, we obtain the abatement level and the pollution stock of cooperative and noncooperative three transboundary pollution problems based on the four order Runge-Kutta method. We also discuss the influence of the change of parameter for the abatement level and the pollution stock