Impact Of Urbanization On Spatial And Temporal Variation Of Rainfall In Beijing Over The Last 50 Years

Rainfall is one of the key terms involved in many hydrological processes, and it is particularly important in the field of urban hydrology. It is well known that urbanization can have potential impact on precipitation process due to the changes it causes to the ground roughness, thermal-dynamics and many other factors. In this study, the focus is set on the impact on the precipitation patterns in Beijing in term of spatial and temporal variation, from the urbanization over last 50 years in which time the fast and continuous expansion of the city at dramatic scales, the rapid growth of residents population as well as human activities especially building of ground constructions, collectively and inevitably bring changes to the local climatic characteristics of the urbanized areas. This study looks at the two periods according to the speed of urbanization, namely the slow urbanization period of 1957-1980 and the fast urbanization period of 1981-2010. Rainfall data collected from the representative rain gauges across the region is used to analyze the spatial and temporal variation over these two periods. The results show that precipitation in urban areas exhibits the characteristics of higher intensity, shorter duration, with the rainfall mainly concentrated in 60 min or so. Local short-duration rainstorms tend to occur more frequently. Compared with suburban areas, urbanization has significant effect, especially on short-duration precipitation events evidenced by remarkable difference between the coefficients of variation of urban rainfall and those of the suburbs. In addition, for the fast urbanization period, the spatially localized, highly intensive rainfall events are found to be more frequent. Therefore, urbanization of the city has caused increase of the strong convective weather and pressure of flood control drainage, which should be paid more attentions to in city planning

Therapeutic effect of He-Wei-Tong-Xie decoction on acute pancreatitis complicated with gastrointestinal dysfunction

Purpose: To study the therapeutic effect of He-Wei-Tong-Xie (HWXT) decoction on acute pancreatitis (AP) complicated with gastrointestinal dysfunction.Methods: AP patients (50) were recruited from the Teaching Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and randomly divided into treatment and control groups (25 per group). All patients were evaluated at baseline, and thereafter subjected to standard therapeutic protocols, including, fasting, gastrointestinal decompression, administration of somatostatin and omeprazole. The patients in the treatment group also received 100 mL of HWTX by nasal route with high enema (three times/day). Gastrointestinal function scores (stomach ache, abdominal distension, borborygmus and defecation), and hospitalization time were evaluated on days 3 and 7 of treatment.Results: No significant baseline differences were observed between the treatment and control groups with respect to etiological agents and AP syndrome scores (p > 0.05). However, after 3 and 7 days of treatment, all AP syndromes in treatment group showed significant improvement compared with the control patients (p < 0.01). There were no significant differences in hospitalization time and rate of recovery between the treatment and control groups (p < 0.01).Conclusion: HWTX treatment appears to be a safe and potentially useful approach for treating AP complicated with gastrointestinal dysfunction.Keywords: He-Wei-Tong-Xie decoction, Acute pancreatitis, Gastrointestinal dysfunction, Somatostatin, Omeprazol

The complete mitochondrial genomes for three Toxocara species of human and animal health significance

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Studying mitochondrial (mt) genomics has important implications for various fundamental areas, including mt biochemistry, physiology and molecular biology. In addition, mt genome sequences have provided useful markers for investigating population genetic structures, systematics and phylogenetics of organisms. <it>Toxocara canis, Toxocara cati </it>and <it>Toxocara malaysiensis </it>cause significant health problems in animals and humans. Although they are of importance in human and animal health, no information on the mt genomes for any of <it>Toxocara </it>species is available.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The sizes of the entire mt genome are 14,322 bp for <it>T. canis</it>, 14029 bp for <it>T. cati </it>and 14266 bp for <it>T. malaysiensis</it>, respectively. These circular genomes are amongst the largest reported to date for all secernentean nematodes. Their relatively large sizes relate mainly to an increased length in the AT-rich region. The mt genomes of the three <it>Toxocara </it>species all encode 12 proteins, two ribosomal RNAs and 22 transfer RNA genes, but lack the ATP synthetase subunit 8 gene, which is consistent with all other species of Nematode studied to date, with the exception of <it>Trichinella spiralis</it>. All genes are transcribed in the same direction and have a nucleotide composition high in A and T, but low in G and C. The contents of A+T of the complete genomes are 68.57% for <it>T. canis</it>, 69.95% for <it>T. cati </it>and 68.86% for <it>T. malaysiensis</it>, among which the A+T for <it>T. canis </it>is the lowest among all nematodes studied to date. The AT bias had a significant effect on both the codon usage pattern and amino acid composition of proteins. The mt genome structures for three <it>Toxocara </it>species, including genes and non-coding regions, are in the same order as for <it>Ascaris suum </it>and <it>Anisakis simplex</it>, but differ from <it>Ancylostoma duodenale</it>, <it>Necator americanus </it>and <it>Caenorhabditis elegans </it>only in the location of the AT-rich region, whereas there are substantial differences when compared with <it>Onchocerca volvulus</it>,<it>Dirofiliria immitis </it>and <it>Strongyloides stercoralis</it>. Phylogenetic analyses based on concatenated amino acid sequences of 12 protein-coding genes revealed that the newly described species <it>T. malaysiensis </it>was more closely related to <it>T. cati </it>than to <it>T. canis</it>, consistent with results of a previous study using sequences of nuclear internal transcribed spacers as genetic markers.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The present study determined the complete mt genome sequences for three roundworms of human and animal health significance, which provides mtDNA evidence for the validity of <it>T. malaysiensis </it>and also provides a foundation for studying the systematics, population genetics and ecology of these and other nematodes of socio-economic importance.</p

Identification of miRNAs and their target genes in developing soybean seeds by deep sequencing

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression by mediating gene silencing at transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels in higher plants. miRNAs and related target genes have been widely studied in model plants such as <it>Arabidopsis </it>and rice; however, the number of identified miRNAs in soybean (<it>Glycine max</it>) is limited, and global identification of the related miRNA targets has not been reported in previous research.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In our study, a small RNA library and a degradome library were constructed from developing soybean seeds for deep sequencing. We identified 26 new miRNAs in soybean by bioinformatic analysis and further confirmed their expression by stem-loop RT-PCR. The miRNA star sequences of 38 known miRNAs and 8 new miRNAs were also discovered, providing additional evidence for the existence of miRNAs. Through degradome sequencing, 145 and 25 genes were identified as targets of annotated miRNAs and new miRNAs, respectively. GO analysis indicated that many of the identified miRNA targets may function in soybean seed development. Additionally, a soybean homolog of Arabidopsis SUPPRESSOR OF GENE SLIENCING 3 (<it>AtSGS3</it>) was detected as a target of the newly identified miRNA Soy_25, suggesting the presence of feedback control of miRNA biogenesis.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We have identified large numbers of miRNAs and their related target genes through deep sequencing of a small RNA library and a degradome library. Our study provides more information about the regulatory network of miRNAs in soybean and advances our understanding of miRNA functions during seed development.</p

Molecular identification and food source inference of constructive plants, native to the Ophiocordyceps sinensis habitat

Ophiocordyceps sinensis is a precious and effectual Traditional Chinese Medicine, native to Tibetan Plateau. Its development originated from parasitization of Hirsutella sinensis to Hepialus larvae, which was deemed to be of great importance including feeding food habit. Hereby in the present, study on food resource plants and their molecular identification technique were performed by some methods such as vegetation investigation, morphological taxonomy, sequence alignment, phylogenetic inference, primer design and correlation analysis and so on. In consequence, molecular identification system of constructive plants native to the O. sinensis habitat was established, and then feeding food habit of Hepialus pui larvae and its correlation with genesis mechanism of O. sinensis were preliminarily analyzed and discussed. It is very significant for phylogenetic systematicbotany research of plateau plants on a relative large scale, and it is the first time to study feeding food habit of Hepialus larvae and its related infected process on the molecular level.Keywords: Phylogenetic inference, molecular identification, constructive plant, Ophiocordyceps sinensis, Hepialus pu

Mass-Varying Massive Gravity

It has recently been shown that the graviton can consistently gain a constant mass without introducing the Boulware-Deser ghost. We propose a gravity model where the graviton mass is set by a scalar field and prove that this model is free of the Boulware-Deser ghost by analyzing its constraint system and showing that two constraints arise. We also initiate the study of the model's cosmic background evolution and tentatively discuss possible cosmological implications of this model. In particular, we consider a simple scenario where the scalar field setting the graviton mass is identified with the inflaton and the graviton mass evolves from a high to a low energy scale, giving rise to the current cosmic acceleration.Comment: 16 page

Detection of the introgression loci in Triticum aestivum transferred from Aegilops tauschii by simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers

Aegilops tauschii possesses many valuable traits or genes. The introgression loci transferred from A. tauschii in populations of 64 lines of BC1F2 and 147 advanced lines of BC1F2-F7 derived from the cross of Chinese Spring (CS; Triticum aestivum) /SQ-214 (A. tauschii) //SW3243 (T. aestivum) was characterized using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. 68 polymorphic loci covering the D genome were used to analyze the distribution of A. tauschii SQ-214 introgression loci in the two derived populations. The result shows that 82.35% loci of A. tauschii SQ-214 were detected in BC1F2 population, while the frequency of introgression loci was 51.47% in the advanced lines of BC1F2-F7 after artificial selection for stripe rust resistance and agronomic traits. Significant changes of the distribution frequency for the same introgression loci between BC1F2 and BC1F2-F7 populations were observed, and seven selective advantage loci from A. tauschii (Xgdm128-3D, Xgdm8-3D, Xgdm72-3D, Xgwm341-3D, Xgdm63-5D, Xgdm132-6D and Xgdm36-6D) were found, which introgression loci distribution frequency increased from 29.69 to 53.91% (BC1F2) to 94.22 to 100% (BC1F2-F7). The selective advantage loci could be used to evaluate the desirable genes or traits derived from A. tauschii SQ-214.Key words: Aegilops tauschii, Triticum aestivum, introgression locus

Interface induced high temperature superconductivity in single unit-cell FeSe films on SrTiO3

Searching for superconducting materials with high transition temperature (TC) is one of the most exciting and challenging fields in physics and materials science. Although superconductivity has been discovered for more than 100 years, the copper oxides are so far the only materials with TC above 77 K, the liquid nitrogen boiling point. Here we report an interface engineering method for dramatically raising the TC of superconducting films. We find that one unit-cell (UC) thick films of FeSe grown on SrTiO3 (STO) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) show signatures of superconducting transition above 50 K by transport measurement. A superconducting gap as large as 20 meV of the 1 UC films observed by scanning tunneling microcopy (STM) suggests that the superconductivity could occur above 77 K. The occurrence of superconductivity is further supported by the presence of superconducting vortices under magnetic field. Our work not only demonstrates a powerful way for finding new superconductors and for raising TC, but also provides a well-defined platform for systematic study of the mechanism of unconventional superconductivity by using different superconducting materials and substrates