Lyapunov Exponents and Phase Transitions of Born-Infeld AdS Black Holes

In this paper, we characterize the phase transitons of Born-Infeld AdS black holes in terms of Lyapunov exponents. We calculate the Lyapunov exponents for both null and timelike geodesics. It is found that black hole phase transitions can be described by multiple-valued Lyapunov exponents. And its phase diagram can be characterized by Lyapunov exponents and Hawking temperature. Besides, the change of Lyapunov exponents can be considered as order parameter, and exists a critical exponent $1/2$ near critical point.Comment: 22 pages, 21 figure

Extremum Seeking Control of Hybrid Ground Source Heat Pump System

The ground source heat pump (GSHP) technology is a renewable alternative for space conditioning by rejecting/absorbing heat to/from the ground, which has demonstrated higher energy efficiency for residential and commercial buildings. As the system capacity is limited by the initial cost of construction of ground-loop heat exchanger (GHE), developing the so-called Hybrid GSHP system by utilizing supplemental heat rejecters such as cooling towers has emerged as a cost-effective alternative. In practice, operational efficiency of Hybrid GSHP system mainly depends on 1) the actual characteristics of heat pump, cooling tower, GHE and other equipment; 2) ambient air and ground conditions. In particular, the GHE heat transfer is heavily affected by the ground thermal characteristics which, however, is difficult and expensive in practice to determine due to the complexity of soil type and distribution. In addition, the actual cooling tower characteristics can vary significantly. Such uncertainties bring forth dramatic difficulty for successful application of model based control or optimization methods. In this study, an extremum seeking control (ESC) strategy is proposed for efficient operation of a hybrid GSHP system with cooling tower, which minimizes the total power (i.e. GHE loop water pump, cooling tower fan and pump, and the heat-pump compressor) consumption by tuning the air-flow rate of the cooling tower fan and the GHE loop water flow rate. To evaluate the proposed control method, a Modelica based model of the Hybrid GSHP system is developed by utilizing the Buildings Library developed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which consists of a 20-borehole GHE, a water-to-water heat pump, a counter-flow cooling tower and a plate heat exchanger. The transient conduction model of vertical GHE in the Buildings Library is adopted, which is based on a finite-volume method inside the borehole and cylindrical source model outside the borehole. A variable-flow water pump model is constructed for the GHE water loop, which gives power consumption under different operating scenarios. A cooling tower model in the Buildings Library is adopted, which is a static polynomial model based on a York cooling tower correlation. The relative air flow rate can be regulated to maintain the leaving water temperature at the setpoint, and then the corresponding fan power consumption is obtained. The heat pump model is based on the evaporator temperature, condenser temperature and Carnot efficiency. An inner-loop proportional-integral (PI) controller is implemented to regulate the evaporator leaving water temperature at 7 deg-C. Under the air wet-bulb temperature of 35 deg-C and dry-bulb temperature 23 deg-C, steady-state simulation of the plant model yields the static map of the total power with respect to the cooling tower relative air flow rate and the GHE water flow rate, which indicates about 25% power variation across the adjustable range of inputs. Simulation was conducted in two conditions: change in evaporator inlet water temperature and change in ambient air condition. The simulation study under way is to validate the effectiveness of the proposed ESC strategy, and the potential for energy saving will also be evaluated

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

Assessing the impact of restoration-induced land conversion and management alternatives on net primary productivity in Inner Mongolian grassland, China

To address severe grassland degradation problems, China has been implementing a number of national restoration programs, whose significant environmental effect has attracted the attention of many researchers. In this paper, land use and cover change (LUCC) in the Inner Mongolia grassland and the consequent change in net primary productivity (NPP) were studied by combining the land use data of the study area for 2001 and 2009 derived from the MODIS global land cover product and the CASA (Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach) model driven with MODIS-NDVI data. The results indicate that the area of Inner Mongolia grassland had a net increase of 77,993km² during the study period, which was mainly attributed to the conversion from desert and cropland. The total NPP of Inner Mongolia grassland increased by 29,432.71GgCyr⁻¹ during 2001-2009, of which the human activities and climate change were responsible for 80.23% and 19.77%, respectively. Land conversion and improved management increased grassland NPP directly, and the ecological restoration conducted by large-scale conservation programs could be the intrinsic driving force for this change.13 page(s

Sediment records and multi-media transfer and fate of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Dianchi Lake over the past 100 years

This study analyzed the fate and transfer of PAHs through multiple media in Dianchi Lake and the sediment records of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in sediments. The model simulation results showed the simulated concentrations to be in good agreement with the measured values. The concentration and total amount of PAHs were the highest in the sediment, which is an important sink for PAHs in lake systems. The main transport direction of the PAHs in the three phases was from the atmosphere to the water to the sediment. Advection and emission inputs were the primary input pathways for PAHs in the atmosphere, and advection output was the main removal path. The main input sources pathways for PAHs in sediments was the sedimentation of particulate matter in water, with diffusion and degradation being the primary methods of removal. Advection and atmospheric dry and wet deposition were the main sources of PAHs in water, with particulate deposition being the primary removal process. The range of PAHs was 336–3520 ng/g in sediments in Dianchi Lake, with an average of 1569 ng/g, peaking in 2012. Among the predicted future PAH concentrations in the sediments under the five shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), the lowest PAH concentration was found under SSP3 from 2025 to 2035, whereas the lowest PAH concentration was found under SSP4 from 2035 to 2050. In the sustainable path of SSP1, although the concentration of PAH pollutants showed an increasing trend in the short term, the increase in PAHs concentration in sediments slowed in the long run

Assessing the spatiotemporal variation in distribution, extent and NPP of terrestrial ecosystems in response to climate change from 1911 to 2000.

To assess the variation in distribution, extent, and NPP of global natural vegetation in response to climate change in the period 1911-2000 and to provide a feasible method for climate change research in regions where historical data is difficult to obtain. In this research, variations in spatiotemporal distributions of global potential natural vegetation (PNV) from 1911 to 2000 were analyzed with the comprehensive sequential classification system (CSCS) and net primary production (NPP) of different ecosystems was evaluated with the synthetic model to determine the effect of climate change on the terrestrial ecosystems. The results showed that consistently rising global temperature and altered precipitation patterns had exerted strong influence on spatiotemporal distribution and productivities of terrestrial ecosystems, especially in the mid/high latitudes. Ecosystems in temperate zones expanded and desert area decreased as a consequence of climate variations. The vegetation that decreased the most was cold desert (18.79%), while the maximum increase (10.31%) was recorded in savanna. Additionally, the area of tundra and alpine steppe reduced significantly (5.43%) and were forced northward due to significant ascending temperature in the northern hemisphere. The global terrestrial ecosystems productivities increased by 2.09%, most of which was attributed to savanna (6.04%), tropical forest (0.99%), and temperate forest (5.49%). Most NPP losses were found in cold desert (27.33%). NPP increases displayed a latitudinal distribution. The NPP of tropical zones amounted to more than a half of total NPP, with an estimated increase of 1.32%. The increase in northern temperate zone was the second highest with 3.55%. Global NPP showed a significant positive correlation with mean annual precipitation in comparison with mean annual temperature and biological temperature. In general, effects of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems were deep and profound in 1911-2000, especially in the latter half of the period

A Network-Based Approach to Explore the Mechanism and Bioactive Compounds of Erzhi Pill against Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Fatty Liver Disease

Erzhi pill (EZP), a classical traditional Chinese medicine prescription, exerts a potent hepatoprotective effect against metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD), previously known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, the mechanism and bioactive compounds underlying the hepatoprotective effect of EZP have not been fully elucidated. In this study, a systematic analytical platform was built to explore the mechanism and bioactive compounds of EZP against MAFLD. This was carried out through target prediction, protein-protein interaction (PPI) network construction, gene ontology, KEGG pathway enrichment, and molecular docking. According to the topological parameters of the PPI network, compound-target-pathway network, 9 targets, and 11 bioactive compounds were identified as core targets and bioactive compounds for molecular docking. The results showed that EZP exerts anti-MAFLD effects through a multicomponent, multitarget, multipathway manner, and luteolin and linarin may be the bioactive compounds of EZP. This study provides further research insights and helps explore the hepatoprotective mechanism of EZP

GeoWizard: Unleashing the Diffusion Priors for 3D Geometry Estimation from a Single Image

We introduce GeoWizard, a new generative foundation model designed for estimating geometric attributes, e.g., depth and normals, from single images. While significant research has already been conducted in this area, the progress has been substantially limited by the low diversity and poor quality of publicly available datasets. As a result, the prior works either are constrained to limited scenarios or suffer from the inability to capture geometric details. In this paper, we demonstrate that generative models, as opposed to traditional discriminative models (e.g., CNNs and Transformers), can effectively address the inherently ill-posed problem. We further show that leveraging diffusion priors can markedly improve generalization, detail preservation, and efficiency in resource usage. Specifically, we extend the original stable diffusion model to jointly predict depth and normal, allowing mutual information exchange and high consistency between the two representations. More importantly, we propose a simple yet effective strategy to segregate the complex data distribution of various scenes into distinct sub-distributions. This strategy enables our model to recognize different scene layouts, capturing 3D geometry with remarkable fidelity. GeoWizard sets new benchmarks for zero-shot depth and normal prediction, significantly enhancing many downstream applications such as 3D reconstruction, 2D content creation, and novel viewpoint synthesis.Comment: Project page: https://fuxiao0719.github.io/projects/geowizard

Protective effect and mechanism of styrax on ischemic stroke rats: metabonomic insights by UPLC-Q/TOF-MS analysis

AbstractContext Styrax is used for prevention and treatment of cerebrovascular diseases. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear.Objective To elucidate styrax’s anti-ischemic stroke protective effects and underlying mechanisms.Materials and methods An ischemic-stroke rat model was established based on middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly assigned to the following groups (n = 10) and administered intragastrically once a day for 7 consecutive days: sham, model, nimodipine (24 mg/kg), styrax-L (0.1 g/kg), styrax-M (0.2 g/kg) and styrax-H (0.4 g/kg). Neurological function, biochemical assessment, and ultra-performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q/TOF-MS)-based serum metabonomics were used to elucidate styrax’s cerebral protective effects and mechanisms. Pearson correlation and western blot analyses were performed to verify.Results The addition of 0.4 g/kg styrax significantly reduced cerebral infarct volume and neurobehavioral abnormality score. Different doses of styrax also decrease MDA, TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1β, and increase SOD and GSH-Px in ischemic-stroke rats (p < 0.05; MDA, p < 0.05 only at 0.4 g/kg dose). Biochemical indicators and metabolic-profile analyses (PCA, PLS-DA, and OPLS-DA) also supported styrax’s protective effects. Endogenous metabolites (22) were identified in ischemic-stroke rats, and these perturbations were reversible via styrax intervention, which is predominantly involved in energy metabolism, glutathione and glutamine metabolism, and other metabolic processes. Additionally, styrax significantly upregulated phosphorylated AMP-activated protein kinase and glutaminase brain-tissue expression.Conclusion Styrax treatment could ameliorate ischemic-stroke rats by intervening with energy metabolism and glutamine metabolism. This can help us understand the mechanism of styrax, inspiring more clinical application and promotion