The distribution and characteristics of suspended particulate matter in the Chukchi Sea

Samples taken from the Chukchi Sea (CS) during the 4th Chinese National Arctic Research Expedition, 2010, were analyzed to determine the content and composition of suspended particulate matter (SPM) to improve our understanding of the distribution, sources and control factors of the SPM there. The results show that the SPM in the water column is highest in the middle and near the bottom in the south and central–north CS, followed by that off the Alaskan coast and in Barrow Canyon. The SPM content is lowest in the central CS. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis shows that the SPM in the south and central–north CS is composed mainly of diatoms, but the dominant species in those two areas are different. The SPM off the Alaskan coast and in Barrow Canyon is composed mainly of terrigenous material with few bio-skeletal clasts. The distribution of temperature and salinity and the correlation between diatom species in SPM indicate that the diatom dominant SPM in the south CS is from the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait in summer. The diatom dominant SPM in the central–north CS is also from Pacific water, which reaches the CS in winter. The SPM in the middle and near the bottom of the water column off the Alaskan coast and in Barrow Canyon is from Alaskan coastal water and terrigenous material transported by rivers in Alaska

Composition and distribution of fish species collected during the fourth Chinese National Arctic Research Expedition in 2010

There are awareness and concerns caused by the decreasing sea ice coverage around the Arctic and Antarctic due to effects of climate change. Emphasis in this study was on rapid changes in Arctic sea ice coverage and its impacts on the marine ecology during the fourth Chinese National Arctic Research Expedition in 2010. Our purpose was to establish a baseline of Arctic fish compositions, and consequent effects of climate change on the fish community and biogeography. Fish specimens were collected using a multinet middle-water trawl, French-type beam trawl, otter trawl, and triangular bottom trawl. In total, 36 tows were carried out along the shelf of the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean. In total, 41 fish species belonging to 14 families in 7 orders were collected during the expedition. Among them, the Scorpaeniformes, including 17 species, accounted for almost one third of the total number (34.8%), followed by 14 species of the Perciformes (27.0%), 5 species of the Pleuronectiformes(22.3%), and 2 species of the Gadiformes (15.4%). The top 6 most abundant species were Hippoglossoides robustus, Boregadus saida, Myoxocephalus scorpius, Lumpenus fabricii, Artediellus scaber, and Gymnocanthus tricuspis. Abundant species varied according to the different fishing methods; numbers of families and species recorded did not differ with the various fishing methods; species and abundances decreased with depth and latitude; and species extending over their known geographic ranges were observed during the expedition. Station information, species list, and color photographs of all fishes are provided

Probing the fractional quantum Hall phases in valley-layer locked bilayer MoS2_{2}

Semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) exhibit high mobility, strong spin-orbit coupling, and large effective masses, which simultaneously leads to a rich wealth of Landau quantizations and inherently strong electronic interactions. However, in spite of their extensively explored Landau levels (LL) structure, probing electron correlations in the fractionally filled LL regime has not been possible due to the difficulty of reaching the quantum limit. Here, we report evidence for fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states at filling fractions 4/5 and 2/5 in the lowest LL of bilayer MoS$_{2}$, manifested in fractionally quantized transverse conductance plateaus accompanied by longitudinal resistance minima. We further show that the observed FQH states sensitively depend on the dielectric and gate screening of the Coulomb interactions. Our findings establish a new FQH experimental platform which are a scarce resource: an intrinsic semiconducting high mobility electron gas, whose electronic interactions in the FQH regime are in principle tunable by Coulomb-screening engineering, and as such, could be the missing link between atomically thin graphene and semiconducting quantum wells.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Reaction Chemistry and Kinetics of Corn Stalk Pyrolysis without and with Ga/HZSM-5

The bifunctional Ga/HZSM-5 catalyst has been proven having the capability to increase the selectivity of aromatics production during catalytic pyrolysis of furan and woody biomass. However, the reaction chemistry and kinetics of pyrolysis of herbaceous biomass promoted by Ga/HZSM-5 is rarely reported. Pyrolysis–gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py–GC/MS) analysis and non-isothermal thermogravimetric analysis at four heating rates were carried out to investigate the decomposition behavior and pyrolysis kinetics of corn stalk without and with Ga/HZSM-5. The effective activation energies for corn stalk pyrolysis were calculated by using the Friedman isoconversional method. The Py–GC/MS analysis results indicated that the Ga/HZSM-5 catalyst had a high selectivity toward producing the aromatic chemicals of xylene, toluene and benzene, whereas the major products from non-catalytic pyrolysis of corn stalk were oxygenated compounds. The presence of Ga/HZSM-5 could significantly reduce the effective activation energies of corn stalk pyrolysis from 159.9–352.4 kJ mol−1 to 41.6–99.8 kJ mol−1 in the conversion range of 0.10–0.85

World Health Organization cardiovascular disease risk charts: revised models to estimate risk in 21 global regions

BACKGROUND: To help adapt cardiovascular disease risk prediction approaches to low-income and middle-income countries, WHO has convened an effort to develop, evaluate, and illustrate revised risk models. Here, we report the derivation, validation, and illustration of the revised WHO cardiovascular disease risk prediction charts that have been adapted to the circumstances of 21 global regions. METHODS: In this model revision initiative, we derived 10-year risk prediction models for fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular disease (ie, myocardial infarction and stroke) using individual participant data from the Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration. Models included information on age, smoking status, systolic blood pressure, history of diabetes, and total cholesterol. For derivation, we included participants aged 40-80 years without a known baseline history of cardiovascular disease, who were followed up until the first myocardial infarction, fatal coronary heart disease, or stroke event. We recalibrated models using age-specific and sex-specific incidences and risk factor values available from 21 global regions. For external validation, we analysed individual participant data from studies distinct from those used in model derivation. We illustrated models by analysing data on a further 123 743 individuals from surveys in 79 countries collected with the WHO STEPwise Approach to Surveillance. FINDINGS: Our risk model derivation involved 376 177 individuals from 85 cohorts, and 19 333 incident cardiovascular events recorded during 10 years of follow-up. The derived risk prediction models discriminated well in external validation cohorts (19 cohorts, 1 096 061 individuals, 25 950 cardiovascular disease events), with Harrell's C indices ranging from 0·685 (95% CI 0·629-0·741) to 0·833 (0·783-0·882). For a given risk factor profile, we found substantial variation across global regions in the estimated 10-year predicted risk. For example, estimated cardiovascular disease risk for a 60-year-old male smoker without diabetes and with systolic blood pressure of 140 mm Hg and total cholesterol of 5 mmol/L ranged from 11% in Andean Latin America to 30% in central Asia. When applied to data from 79 countries (mostly low-income and middle-income countries), the proportion of individuals aged 40-64 years estimated to be at greater than 20% risk ranged from less than 1% in Uganda to more than 16% in Egypt. INTERPRETATION: We have derived, calibrated, and validated new WHO risk prediction models to estimate cardiovascular disease risk in 21 Global Burden of Disease regions. The widespread use of these models could enhance the accuracy, practicability, and sustainability of efforts to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease worldwide. FUNDING: World Health Organization, British Heart Foundation (BHF), BHF Cambridge Centre for Research Excellence, UK Medical Research Council, and National Institute for Health Research

Methyltransferase Dnmt3a upregulates HDAC9 to deacetylate the kinase TBK1 for activation of antiviral innate immunity

The DNA methyltransferase Dnmt3a has high expression in terminally differentiated macrophages; however, its role in innate immunity remains unknown. Here we report that deficiency in Dnmt3a selectively impaired the production of type I interferons triggered by pattern-recognition receptors (PRRs), but not that of the proinflammatory cytokines TNF and IL-6. Dnmt3a-deficient mice exhibited enhanced susceptibility to viral challenge. Dnmt3a did not directly regulate the transcription of genes encoding type I interferons; instead, it increased the production of type I interferons through an epigenetic mechanism by maintaining high expression of the histone deacetylase HDAC9. In turn, HDAC9 directly maintained the deacetylation status of the key PRR signaling molecule TBK1 and enhanced its kinase activity. Our data add mechanistic insight into the crosstalk between epigenetic modifications and post-translational modifications in the regulation of PRR signaling and activation of antiviral innate immune responses

Enhancing Cooperative Coevolution with Selective Multiple Populations for Large-Scale Global Optimization

The cooperative coevolution (CC) algorithm features a “divide-and-conquer” problem-solving process. This feature has great potential for large-scale global optimization (LSGO) while inducing some inherent problems of CC if a problem is improperly decomposed. In this work, a novel CC named selective multiple population- (SMP-) based CC (CC-SMP) is proposed to enhance the cooperation of subproblems by addressing two challenges: finding informative collaborators whose fitness and diversity are qualified and adapting to the dynamic landscape. In particular, a CMA-ES-based multipopulation procedure is employed to identify local optima which are then shared as potential informative collaborators. A restart-after-stagnation procedure is incorporated to help the child populations adapt to the dynamic landscape. A biobjective selection is also incorporated to select qualified child populations according to the criteria of informative individuals (fitness and diversity). Only selected child populations are active in the next evolutionary cycle while the others are frozen to save computing resource. In the experimental study, the proposed CC-SMP is compared to 7 state-of-the-art CC algorithms on 20 benchmark functions with 1000 dimensionality. Statistical comparison results figure out significant superiority of the CC-SMP. In addition, behavior of the SMP scheme and sensitivity to the cooperation frequency are also analyzed