Chinese science diplomacy in Arctic climate governance based on a survey and interviews with Chinese scientists

Science diplomacy is attracting increasing attention in the international relations literature. This study investigates how Chinese scientists understand this term and explores China’s dynamic praxis in Arctic climate governance. It conducts a theoretical and practical examination of science diplomacy in terms of three dimensions—science in diplomacy, diplomacy for science, and science for diplomacy—thus achieving a high degree of consistency. A multi-method approach, combining qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and involving the adoption of a literature review, participant interviews, and questionnaires, is adopted. Data were collected from interviews with 16 Chinese scientists involved in Arctic climate governance and from 130 valid questionnaires collected from Chinese natural scientists working in the climate change field. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative findings, the study reveals that the three-dimensional framework of science diplomacy can provide insight into Chinese scientists’ understandings of the topic. In contrast to the participants’ vague theoretical responses, the outlines of China’s Arctic climate governance can be clearly identified within this framework. The study concludes by underlining the tension between theory and practice in terms of science diplomacy and highlighting the emerging challenges for China in developing its Arctic science diplomacy against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia-Ukraine conflict. Moreover, it is suggested that, to further develop China’s Arctic science diplomacy, it is vital to take account of the deficiencies in China’s science diplomacy. The study’s empirical results contribute to an understanding of the dynamic nature of science diplomacy in the Chinese context

EviPrompt: A Training-Free Evidential Prompt Generation Method for Segment Anything Model in Medical Images

Medical image segmentation has immense clinical applicability but remains a challenge despite advancements in deep learning. The Segment Anything Model (SAM) exhibits potential in this field, yet the requirement for expertise intervention and the domain gap between natural and medical images poses significant obstacles. This paper introduces a novel training-free evidential prompt generation method named EviPrompt to overcome these issues. The proposed method, built on the inherent similarities within medical images, requires only a single reference image-annotation pair, making it a training-free solution that significantly reduces the need for extensive labeling and computational resources. First, to automatically generate prompts for SAM in medical images, we introduce an evidential method based on uncertainty estimation without the interaction of clinical experts. Then, we incorporate the human prior into the prompts, which is vital for alleviating the domain gap between natural and medical images and enhancing the applicability and usefulness of SAM in medical scenarios. EviPrompt represents an efficient and robust approach to medical image segmentation, with evaluations across a broad range of tasks and modalities confirming its efficacy

Rapid faults detection for controlling multi-terminal high voltage DC grids under AC grid contingencies

To control power flow for integration of distributed energy onto urban power grids, rapid and accurate detection of the amplitude, phase-angle, and frequency offset of the grid voltage's positive and negative sequence components especially under grid fault conditions are more significant. This paper presents a new faults detection method that is capable of tracking signal deviations on the grid-voltage accurately and rapidly even in the case that bus-voltage contains high order harmonics and random noises. The experimental results verify the validity of the proposed method under various grid-fault conditions

China and Russia Energy Strategy Development: Arctic LNG

Nowadays, the LNG market is a derivative of the traditional gas market and has certain advantages over pipeline gas supplies. Many countries, including the Russian Federation, are trying to consolidate their positions in the relatively new and growing LNG market. In the paper, Sino-Russia Energy strategy perspectives until 2030 are being analyzed in detail. The authors analyze the Arctic LNG case as the most crucial for both countries’ collaboration. The Arctic is considered as the new strategic frontier of China. China is a critical Arctic stakeholder as it is written in the newly released white paper China’s Arctic Policy. The authors use Python 3.4. modeling for testing the influence of economic, social and environmental factors on Sino-Russia energy collaboration. The methodology consists of foresight analysis, including principal component isolation (further- PCA) method and SARIMA analysis. Research results show that the values of the components in Russia and China industries are drastically different. However, some components would be significantly developed due to Russia’s existing trends by 2030. Indeed, it can be concluded that the dissimilarity between Russia and China’ oil and gas industries would increase by 2030, as indicated by the first, second and fourth components. China’s oil and gas industry has a stable trend for development.Keywords: Sino-Russia Energy Cooperation, Energy Strategy 2030, Innovation Strategy, Arctic LNG, Principal Component Isolation analysisJEL Classifications: F42, F43, F47, L51DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.11316</p

Effects of depth of straw returning on maize yield potential and greenhouse gas emissions

Appropriate straw incorporation has ample agronomic and environmental benefits, but most studies are limited to straw mulching or application on the soil surface. To determine the effect of depth of straw incorporation on the crop yield, soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN) and greenhouse gas emission, a total of 4 treatments were set up in this study, which comprised no straw returning (CK), straw returning at 15 cm (S15), straw returning at 25 cm (S25) and straw returning at 40 cm (S40). The results showed that straw incorporation significantly increased SOC, TN and C:N ratio. Compared with CK treatments, substantial increases in the grain yield (by 4.17~5.49% for S15 and 6.64~10.06% for S25) were observed under S15 and S25 treatments. S15 and S25 could significantly improve the carbon and nitrogen status of the 0-40 cm soil layer, thereby increased maize yield. The results showed that the maize yield was closely related to the soil carbon and nitrogen index of the 0-40 cm soil layer. In order to further evaluate the environmental benefits of straw returning, this study measured the global warming potential (GWP) and greenhouse gas emission intensity (GHGI). Compared with CK treatments, the GWP of S15, S25 and S40 treatments was increased by 9.35~20.37%, 4.27~7.67% and 0.72~6.14%, respectively, among which the S15 treatment contributed the most to the GWP of farmland. GHGI is an evaluation index of low-carbon agriculture at this stage, which takes into account both crop yield and global warming potential. In this study, GHGI showed a different trend from GWP. Compared with CK treatments, the S25 treatments had no significant difference in 2020, and decreased significantly in 2021 and 2022. This is due to the combined effect of maize yield and cumulative greenhouse gas emissions, indicating that the appropriate straw returning method can not only reduce the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions but also improve soil productivity and enhance the carbon sequestration effect of farmland soil, which is an ideal soil improvement and fertilization measure

Emission Characteristics of Pollution Gases from the Combustion of Food Waste

The emission characteristics of pollution gases produced via the combustion of food waste were studied through a laboratory-scale electrically heated tube furnace. The results showed that the pollution gases generated from the combustion of food waste were CO, H2 and NOx. Each emission curve of CO had a peak. When the combustion temperature rose from 400 °C to 1000 °C, the peak first increased (from 400 °C to 700 °C) and then decreased (from 800 °C to 1000 °C). However, the burnout time shortened with the increase in temperature. Therefore, food waste should be combusted at a higher temperature than 700 °C from the perspective of reducing CO emissions. The emissions of H2 were similar to those of CO. In other words, if CO emissions increased, H2 emissions also increased in the same temperature range. Some NOx emission curves had two peaks (the combustion of cooked rice at 1000 °C; the combustion of vegetable leaves in the temperature range of 600 °C to 1000 °C). The higher the combustion temperature, the higher the second NOx emission peak. NOx emissions from the combustion of cooked rice were greater in the temperature range of 400 °C to 500 °C, whereas for vegetable leaves, that temperature range was from 600 °C to 700 °C. Hence, from the viewpoint of reducing pollution gases, food waste should be combusted at a higher temperature than 700 °C

Sediment source-to-sink processes of the southeastern Indian Ocean during the Late Eocene-Oligocene and their potential significance for paleoclimate

Understanding the paleoclimate responses in Southern Ocean and its surrounding land can help us to better explore the major climate transition mechanisms in geological history and predict the response ofthe earth system to abrupt climate changes in the future, while, there is still a lack of research on the paleoclimatere sponse of the surrounding land in Southern Ocean.Based on the age framework, major, traceand rare earth element compositions of the deep-sea sediments at Site U1516 of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) 369, we determined that the sediments were mainly from the southwest continent of Australia, and then reconstructed the chemical weathering history of the source area on the tectonic time scale.In addition, we combined with the previous research results to discuss the paleoclimate evolution of continents surrounding Southern Ocean during the Late Eocene-Oligocene climate transition period and its response toglobal climate changes and regional paleogeographic changes.During the Eocene-Oligocene transition (e.g., 34.1 to 33.6 Ma and 31.3 to 29.8 Ma), the paleoclimate in the source area was mainly controlled by the significant changes in the paleogeographic pattern of the adjacent area, which was characterized by the climate conditions tending to bedry and cold and the decrease of chemical weathering intensity on the land surface.During the period of 33.6 to 31.3 Ma and 29.8 to 25.2 Ma, the palaeoclimate of the source area mainly responded to global climate changes.In theformer stage, the paleoclimate changed from dry and cold to wet and hot, the intensity of chemical weathering on the land surface increased correspondingly; In the latter stage, the climate maintained in a relatively stable dry and cold state, the intensity of chemical weathering on the land surface is also weak

The Characteristics of Gravity and Regional Ocean Tides at Zhongshan Station in Antarctic

This study investigates the characteristics of gravity and ocean tides using time series recorded with the spring gravimeter and tide gauge at Zhongshan station, CATS2008 regional ocean tide model, and Eot11a global ocean tide model. The results show that the ocean tidal amplitude of O1 wave reaches 28 cm in the diurnal tidal bands. The sum of four tidals (Q1, O1, P1 and K1) difference between the global model and the tide gauge station is 4.2 cm, and that between the regional model and the tide gauge station is 4.4 cm. In contrast, the tidal amplitude of M2 wave reaches 20 cm in the semi-diurnal bands, and the sum of four tidals (N2, M2, S2 and K2) difference are 7.7 cm and 5.1 cm, respectively. This shows that correcting global ocean tide model using regional models is important. Subsequent to the correction of global oceanic loading using the regional model, the amplitudes of final residuals for the main gravity waves K1, M2, and S2 decreased by 9.84%, 56.14%, and 37.08%, respectively, which indicates that the regional ocean tide model can better reflect the true characteristics of ocean tides. Moreover, the validity of correcting global ocean tide model using the regional model is verified

Angle-Only Cooperative Orbit Determination Considering Attitude Uncertainty

In this paper, a novel concept for cooperative orbit determination (OD) using inter-spacecraft angle-only measurements is proposed. Different from the conventional cooperative OD that only estimates orbit states, the attitude of the observer spacecraft is considered by incorporating the attitude into the estimated vector. The observability of a two-spacecraft system is analyzed based on the observability matrix. Observability analysis reveals that inter-spacecraft angle-only measurements are inadequate to estimate both the attitude and the orbit states in two-body dynamics. The observability of the two-spacecraft system can be improved by considering high-order gravitational perturbation or executing an attitude maneuver on the observer spacecraft. This is the first time that we present the observability analysis and orbit estimation results for a two-spacecraft system considering attitude uncertainty for the observer. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results in this paper can be potentially useful for autonomous managements of a spacecraft constellation and formation