Research on Ecological Environmental Carrying Capacity in Yellow River Delta

AbstractThe Yellow River Delta was selected as study area in this paper. Based on a comprehensive analysis of environmental capacity theory, environmental carrying capacity was studied using ecological footprint model, combining with the economic and social data of the Yellow River Delta from 2001-2008. The results showed that the ecological footprint per capita had increased two times from 2001-2008, which was from 0.1885 hm2 in 2001 to 0.4639 hm2 in 2008. The diversity of ecological footprint had changed slightly, and the ratio of biotic resources requirement was largest among all the other types. The development ability of ecosystem had a little improved. Environmental carrying capacity of the Yellow River Delta had increased. But compared to the increasing of ecological footprint, the increasing degree was not notable, and the ecological deficit increased obviously. The unsustainable development has already appeared from the analysis of ecological footprint index. Finally, some countermeasures were advanced in order to improve the environment situation of the Yellow River Delta, such as adjusting industrial structure through developing circulate economy vigorously, saving mine resources and protecting pasture environment through strengthening management, controlling the population and advocating sustainable life style

Reconstruction of multiple climate variables at high spatiotemporal resolution based on Big Earth data platform

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Science.Reconstruction of climate variables with high spatio-temporal resolution is important when the meteorological observations required for environmental monitoring and modelling do not cover the study area. In addition, climate model reanalysis datasets suffer from coarse spatio-temporal resolutions, which fails to capture the complex variability of climate at fine scales. This thesis mainly reconstructed four climate datasets including: mountainous solar radiation, near-surface air temperature datasets over rugged terrain, five distinct metrics of long-term heat wave datasets, an updated database of water and wind erosion. For further use in practice, these datasets are freely accessible and online web application has been developed for academic research on climate change under accelerated global warming. The main findings of this thesis are: (1) A GIS‐based solar radiation model that incorporates albedo, shading by surrounding terrain, and variations in cloudiness was developed to address the spatial variability of these factors in mountainous terrain. (2) The Tibetan Plateau has been undergoing accelerated warming over recent decades, and is considered an indicator for broader global warming phenomena. However, our understanding of warming rates with elevation in complex mountain regions is incomplete. The most serious concern is the lack of high‐quality near‐surface air temperature (Tair) datasets in these areas. To address this knowledge gap, we create new near-surface air temperature datasets to understand elevation-dependent warming in the Tibetan Plateau. (3) Under ongoing global warming due to climate change, heat waves in Australia are expected to become more frequent and severe. A Google Earth Engine-based toolkit named heat wave tracker (HWT) is developed, which can be used for dynamic visualization, extraction, and processing of complex heat wave events. The datasets, toolkit, and findings we developed contribute to global studies on heat waves under accelerated global warming. (4) Soil erosion caused by water and wind is a complicated natural process that has been accelerated by human activity. This erosion has resulted in increasing areas of land degradation which threaten the productive potential of landscapes. Consistent and continuous erosion monitoring will help identify the trends, magnitude, and location of soil erosion. We apply the water-wind erosion model to produce monthly and annual water, and wind erosion estimation at high spatial resolution (up to 90 m, 500 m) for Australia from 2000 to 2020

Иностранные воинские захоронения Великой Отечественной войны в Челябинской области: результаты поисковых работ и современное состояние

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A redox conjugated polymer-based all-solid-state reference electrode

This work reports the design, synthesis, and characterization of a novel redox-active conjugated polyaniline containing quinone moiety as a solid state reference electrode. The union of electro-active quinone with π-conjugated polyaniline was created by the first chemical synthesis of para-dimethoxybenzene-functionalized aniline as a monomer using a palladium-mediated coupling. The successful polymerization of the as-prepared monomer was accomplished without acid additives. Its post-polymerization modification with strong Lewis acid boron tribromide furnished unique poly (aniline quinone/hydroquinone) with desired properties for all-solid-state reference electrode (RE) applications. The electrochemical responses from the conjugated polyaniline backbone in this unique polymer have been “suppressed” by the quinone pendant. The resulting poly (aniline quinone) showed a quasi-reversible redox process from the redox behavior of the pendant quinone. The stable electrode potential of this poly (aniline quinone/hydroquinone) suggested that it was a single phase in which the amounts of totally reduced and totally oxidized species could be maintained at a constant in various solvents and electrolytes. Its electrochemical stability was excellent with 95% peak current retention after continuous cyclic voltammetric testing. The aniline and quinone moieties in poly (aniline quinone/hydroquinone) render it to have both hydrophilic and hydrophobic compatibility. It showed excellent behavior as a reference electrode in aqueous and non-aqueous media and can be used in both non-zero current and zero-current conditions, providing a stable potential with a maximum potential drift of ~4.7 mV over ten consecutive days

Receptor discordance between primary breast cancer and liver metastases

Background and purpose: Systematic treatment for breast cancer largely depends on the status of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). Discordance in ER, PR and HER2 status between primary breast cancer and distant metastases has been observed in a proportion of patients in previous studies. Liver is one of the frequent metastatic sites of breast cancer. Currently, limited data are available on the receptor conversion between primary breast cancer and matched liver metastases. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence, risk factors and prognostic impact of receptor conversion between primary breast cancer and paired liver metastases. Methods: The data of breast cancer patients who had pathologically confirmed liver metastases from January 2013 to May 2020 at Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center were retrospectively collected. A total of 353 patients with ER, PR and HER2 status available on both primary breast cancer and matched liver metastases were finally included in this study. ER, PR and HER2 status were interpreted according to the most updated American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)/College of American Pathologists (CAP) guidelines. The evolution of receptor status and phenotype from primary to metastatic breast cancer was illustrated using Sankey diagrams. Kappa coefficient and McNemar’s test were used to assess the agreement on receptor status between primary breast cancer and liver metastases. The Kaplan-Meier curves were plotted and survival differences across each group were assessed by log-rank test. Multivariate analyses were performed based on the COX proportional hazard regression model. Results: The total discordance rate of ER, PR and HER2 was 19.5%, 39.4% and 4.8%, respectively (Kappa coefficient: 0.569, 0.258 0.876). In de novo stage Ⅳ patients, the discordance rate of ER, PR and HER2 was 15.2%, 28.3% and 2.2%, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that previous endocrine therapy before liver re-biopsy was an independent risk factor of PR discordance. None of the variables of interest was found to be associated with discordance in ER or HER2 status. Additionally, 37.9% of the HER2-0 tumors converted to HER2-low. A trend of increase in triple-negative and decrease in hormone receptor (HR)+/HER2- cases were observed in liver metastases. Patients with HR+/HER2- primary breast cancer who converted to triple-negative in liver metastases had a significantly shorter overall survival (OS) than those with consistent HR+/HER2- subtype. Patients with the same subtype in liver metastases shared similar OS. Conclusion: This study confirmed discordance in ER, PR and HER2 status between primary breast cancer and liver metastases. The prognosis of breast cancer patients was determined mainly by the subtype in metastases rather than that in primary disease. Our study underlined the necessity of liver re-biopsy in de novo stage Ⅳ patients with liver metastases. Over one-third of HER2-0 patients converted to HER2-low in liver metastases after reassessment, which enabled them to be treated with new antibody-drug conjugate (ADC)

Turn the Rudder: A Beacon of Reentrancy Detection for Smart Contracts on Ethereum

Smart contracts are programs deployed on a blockchain and are immutable once deployed. Reentrancy, one of the most important vulnerabilities in smart contracts, has caused millions of dollars in financial loss. Many reentrancy detection approaches have been proposed. It is necessary to investigate the performance of these approaches to provide useful guidelines for their application. In this work, we conduct a large-scale empirical study on the capability of five well-known or recent reentrancy detection tools such as Mythril and Sailfish. We collect 230,548 verified smart contracts from Etherscan and use detection tools to analyze 139,424 contracts after deduplication, which results in 21,212 contracts with reentrancy issues. Then, we manually examine the defective functions located by the tools in the contracts. From the examination results, we obtain 34 true positive contracts with reentrancy and 21,178 false positive contracts without reentrancy. We also analyze the causes of the true and false positives. Finally, we evaluate the tools based on the two kinds of contracts. The results show that more than 99.8% of the reentrant contracts detected by the tools are false positives with eight types of causes, and the tools can only detect the reentrancy issues caused by call.value(), 58.8% of which can be revealed by the Ethereum's official IDE, Remix. Furthermore, we collect real-world reentrancy attacks reported in the past two years and find that the tools fail to find any issues in the corresponding contracts. Based on the findings, existing works on reentrancy detection appear to have very limited capability, and researchers should turn the rudder to discover and detect new reentrancy patterns except those related to call.value().Comment: Accepted by ICSE 2023. Dataset available at https://github.com/InPlusLab/ReentrancyStudy-Dat

Creating New Near-Surface Air Temperature Datasets to Understand Elevation-Dependent Warming in the Tibetan Plateau

The Tibetan Plateau has been undergoing accelerated warming over recent decades, and is considered an indicator for broader global warming phenomena. However, our understanding of warming rates with elevation in complex mountain regions is incomplete. The most serious concern is the lack of high-quality near-surface air temperature (Tair) datasets in these areas. To address this knowledge gap, we developed an automated mapping framework for the estimation of seamless daily minimum and maximum Land Surface Temperatures (LSTs) for the Tibetan Plateau from the existing MODIS LST products for a long period of time (i.e., 2002–present). Specific machine learning methods were developed and linked with target-oriented validation and then applied to convert LST to Tair. Spatial variables in retrieving Tair, such as solar radiation and vegetation indices, were used in estimation of Tair, whereas MODIS LST products were mainly focused on temporal variation in surface air temperature. We validated our process using independent Tair products, revealing more reliable estimates on Tair; the R2 and RMSE at monthly scales generally fell in the range of 0.9–0.95 and 1–2 °C. Using these continuous and consistent Tair datasets, we found temperature increases in the elevation range between 2000–3000 m and 4000–5000 m, whereas the elevation interval at 6000–7000 m exhibits a cooling trend. The developed datasets, findings and methodology contribute to global studies on accelerated warming

Normal spermatogenesis in Fank1 (fibronectin type 3 and ankyrin repeat domains 1) mutant mice

Background The fibronectin type 3 and ankyrin repeat domains 1 gene, Fank1, is an ancient, evolutionarily conserved gene present in vertebrates. Short-hairpin RNA (shRNA)-based knockdown transgenic mice have oligospermia caused by an increase in apoptotic germ cells. In this study, we investigated the in vivo function of Fank1. Methods In this study, we generated Fank1-knockout mice using the CRISPR/Cas9 system. We then investigated the phenotype and in vivo function of Fank1. Testes and epididymis tissues were analyzed by histological and immunofluorescence staining. Apoptotic cells were analyzed in terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end-labeling assays. Fertility and sperm counts were also evaluated. The GTEx database were used to assess gene expression quantitative trait loci and mRNA expression of candidate genes and genes neighboring single nucleotide polymorphisms was analyzed by quantitative RT-PCR. Results In contrast to the Fank1-knockdown model, no significant changes in epididymal sperm content and the number of apoptotic cells were observed in Fank1−/− homozygotes. In addition, a different pattern of Dusp1, Klk1b21 and Klk1b27 mRNA expression was detected in Fank1-knockout testis. These results reveal differences in the molecular changes between Fank1-knockdown mice and Fank1-knockout mice and provide a basic resource for population genetics studies

Development of anthropomorphic phantoms for combined PET-ultrasound breast imaging

International audienceAs part of the development a combined PET-Ultrasound multimodal scanner for breast imaging by the Crystal Clear collaboration (The ClearPEM-Sonic project) we have developed and tested a phantom that can be used for making realistic images with both modalities. In a first step we measured the propagation velocities of the acoustic waves, the attenuation coefficient and the elasticity (Young's modulus) for several series of different samples based on gelatine and agar mixtures. We determined which preparations reproduce the acoustical and elastic properties of different body tissues of interest in breast imaging such as fat tissue, glandular tissue, fibrous tissue and carcinomat tissue. In a second step we have built phantoms where we added a small amount of FDG (WHAT IS FDG?) during the preparation of the phantom such as to give the different parts in the phantom activities similar to what is usually present in the breast during PET imaging. The phantom was than imaged on a Philips Gemini TF PET/CT and on a US scanner from ATL, HDI 5000. The images were superposed using rigid transformations to produce combined PET/US images. We also evaluated the performance of our phantoms for US elastographic imaging. Details on the procedure for producing the phantoms will be given

Impacts of a wildfire on soil organic carbon in Warrumbungle National Park, Australia

A wildfire in the Warrumbungle Range in January 2013 burnt 56,290 ha of forest land, 72% of it at high-extreme severity. We investigated the effects of fire on soil organic carbon (SOC), soil carbon fractions (Particulate Organic Carbon (POC), Humus Organic Carbon (HOC) and Resistant Organic Carbon (ROC)) at 64 sites stratified according to geology and fire severity across Warrumbungle National Park. Statistical models were used to identify the main factors controlling the soil chemical parameters and we spatially extrapolated results based on these main factors to estimate the overall impacts of the fire. Statistical models indicated that the key effects on SOC were fire severity and geology/soil type. SOC declined with increasing fire severity − topsoil SOC in low severity sites was 14% lower than unburnt sites, and severely burnt sites were 54% lower than unburnt. There were also significant differences in SOC fractions between the different geology/soil types. These results were also reflected in N and pH changes. The highest SOC values were from unburnt volcanic topsoils. Sandier and especially sandstone-derived soils had less SOC irrespective of the fire severity class. The lowest SOC values were from severely burnt sandstone ridges, where most of the remaining SOC occurs as ROC (including charcoal). Site data was classified according to a fire severity map and geological mapping, and class averages spatially extrapolated to obtain an estimate of the amounts of SOC lost due to the fire. An estimated 1.52 Mt (26.99 t/ha) of SOC was lost over the fire ground to 10 cm. SOC levels in unburnt control sites are much higher than averages in the generally cleared central west of NSW, thus underlining the importance of forested ecosystems in carbon sequestration in soils, and of Warrumbungle National Park with its high proportion of trachytic clayey soils in particular