Precipitation Pattern Change Influence on Vegetation of Xilingol Grassland in Inner Mongolia, China

The Xilingol grassland covers the region bounded by 41’09”–45’31” N and 111’14”–118’25” E. It is representative of a typical steppe in northern China, with the major native grass species present being Aneurolepidium chinense and Stipa spp. However these grasslands have become increasingly degraded due to desertification and/or the impacts of human activities resulting in the previous climax plant community becoming substantially altered. In the Xilingol League most weather station started observations around 1960 (earliest 1952), however, grassland phenology and biomass measurement only started in 1980. The growing season runs from the 1st May to the 30th September. Between 1961-2010, the Xilingol grassland annual mean temperature has increased by 2.2ºC, precipitation has decreased by18.65 mm, and sunlight decreased by 25.75 hours. Moreover, rainfall patterns have changed and extreme rainfall events and drought events have increased. In the 2000’s, a policy to reduce the human population and grazing intensity in grassland areas was implemented and resulted in the removal of farmers from the Xilingol region. In addition, other measures were undertaken to reduce the impact of grazing including fencing vulnerable areas to exclude livestock, rotational grazing, and banning of grazing during spring to prevent further grassland degradation and promote recovery (Zhao and Zu 2000). The aim of this paper is to determine how to best manage stocking density based on grass yield

On Talagrand's functional and generic chaining

In the study of the supremum of stochastic processes, Talagrand's chaining functionals and his generic chaining method are heavily related to the distribution of stochastic processes. In the present paper, we construct Talagrand's type functionals in the general distribution case and obtain the upper bound for the suprema of all $p$-th moments of the stochastic process using the generic chaining method. As applications, we obtained the Johnson-Lindenstrauss lemma, the upper bound for the supremum of all $p$-th moment of order 2 Gaussian chaos, and convex signal recovery in our setting

Protective effect of extract of Cordyceps sinensis in middle cerebral artery occlusion-induced focal cerebral ischemia in rats

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Ischemic hypoxic brain injury often causes irreversible brain damage. The lack of effective and widely applicable pharmacological treatments for ischemic stroke patients may explain a growing interest in traditional medicines. From the point of view of "self-medication" or "preventive medicine," <it>Cordyceps sinensis </it>was used in the prevention of cerebral ischemia in this paper.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The right middle cerebral artery occlusion model was used in the study. The effects of <it>Cordyceps sinensis </it>(Caterpillar fungus) extract on mortality rate, neurobehavior, grip strength, lactate dehydrogenase, glutathione content, Lipid Peroxidation, glutathione peroxidase activity, glutathione reductase activity, catalase activity, Na⁺K⁺ATPase activity and glutathione S transferase activity in a rat model were studied respectively.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>Cordyceps sinensis </it>extract significantly improved the outcome in rats after cerebral ischemia and reperfusion in terms of neurobehavioral function. At the same time, supplementation of <it>Cordyceps sinensis </it>extract significantly boosted the defense mechanism against cerebral ischemia by increasing antioxidants activity related to lesion pathogenesis. Restoration of the antioxidant homeostasis in the brain after reperfusion may have helped the brain recover from ischemic injury.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These experimental results suggest that complement <it>Cordyceps sinensis </it>extract is protective after cerebral ischemia in specific way. The administration of <it>Cordyceps sinensis </it>extract significantly reduced focal cerebral ischemic/reperfusion injury. The defense mechanism against cerebral ischemia was by increasing antioxidants activity related to lesion pathogenesis.</p

An Improved Memory State Feedback RMPC for Uncertain Constrained Linear Systems with Multiple Uncertain Delays

The problem of robust asymptotic stabilization is considered for a class of discrete-time uncertain linear systems with multiple uncertain time-delayed states and input constraints. Compared with other works in the literature, the proposed approach takes the information of the delayed states with the estimated time-delays indices into full consideration. Based on the predictive control principle of receding horizon optimization and Lyapunov stability theory combined with linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) techniques, a time-delayed state dependent quadratic function is considered for incorporating MPC problem formulation. The robust MPC problem is formulated to minimize the upper bound of infinite horizon cost that satisfies the sufficient conditions. The proposed approach allows for the synthesis of robust memory state feedback controllers with respect to uncertainties on the implemented delay. Since developing the improved memory state feedback controller, the novel improved method is much less conservative and more general. Finally, the numerical simulation results prove availability of the proposed method

Real-projective-plane hybrid-order topological insulator realized in phononic crystals

The manifold of the fundamental domain of the Brillouin zone is always considered to be a torus. However, under the synthetic gauge field, the Brillouin manifold can be modified by the projective symmetries, resulting in unprecedented topological properties. Here, we realize a real-projective-plane hybrid-order topological insulator in a phononic crystal by introducing the Z_2 gauge field. Such insulator hosts two momentum-space non-symmorphic reflection symmetries, which change the Brillouin manifold from a torus to a real projective plane. These symmetries can simultaneously lead to Klein-bottle and quadrupole topologies in different bulk gaps. The non-symmorphic reflection symmetries on Brillouin real projective plane, edge states of Klein-bottle insulator, and corner states of quadrupole insulator are observed. These results evidence the hybrid-order topology on Brillouin manifold beyond the torus, and enrich the topological physics.Comment: 4 figure