Understorey plant community and light availability in conifer plantations and natural hardwood forests in Taiwan

Questions: What are the effects of replacing mixed species natural forests with Cryptomeria japonica plantations on understorey plant functional and species diversity? What is the role of the understorey light environment in determining understorey diversity and community in the two types of forest? Location: Subtropical northeast Taiwan. Methods: We examined light environments using hemispherical photography, and diversity and composition of understorey plants of a 35‐yr C. japonica plantation and an adjacent natural hardwood forest. Results: Understorey plant species richness was similar in the two forests, but the communities were different; only 18 of the 91 recorded understorey plant species occurred in both forests. Relative abundance of plants among different functional groups differed between the two forests. Relative numbers of shade‐tolerant and shade‐intolerant seedling individuals were also different between the two forest types with only one shade‐intolerant seedling in the plantation compared to 23 seedlings belonging to two species in the natural forest. In the natural forest 11 species of tree seedling were found, while in the plantation only five were found, and the seedling density was only one third of that in the natural forest. Across plots in both forests, understorey plant richness and diversity were negatively correlated with direct sunlight but not indirect sunlight, possibly because direct light plays a more important role in understorey plant growth. Conclusions: We report lower species and functional diversity and higher light availability in a natural hardwood forest than an adjacent 30‐yr C. japonica plantation, possibly due to the increased dominance of shade‐intolerant species associated with higher light availability. To maintain plant diversity, management efforts must be made to prevent localized losses of shade‐adapted understorey plants

Western North Pacific Typhoons with Concentric Eyewalls

Mon. Wea. Rev. 137, 3758-3770.This study examines the intensity change and moat dynamics of typhoons with concentric eyewalls using passive microwave data and best track data in the western North Pacific between 1997 and 2006. Of the 225 typhoons examined, we have indentified 55 typhoons and 62 cases with concentric eyewalls. The data indicate that approximately 50% of Category 4 and 75% of Category 5 typhoons possessed concentric eyewalls at some point during their life time. While major typhoons are most likely to form the concentric eyewalls, the formation of concentric structure may not be necessarily at the lifetime maximum intensity. Approximately one-third of concentric eyewall cases are formed at the time of maximum intensity A theoretical parameter called filamentation moat width is devised. The filamentation moat width can be computed from the best track typhoon intensity and the passive microwave satellite-estimated inner eyewall radius for each typhoon with concentric eyewalls. The filamentation moat width explains 40% of the variance of the satellite observed moat width in the group with concentric eyewall formation intensity greater than 130 kts. The moat is generally recognized to be heavily influenced by the subsidence forced by the two eyewalls. Our results suggest that the rapid filamentation dynamics may also be contributing to the organizational aspect of the moat in very intense typhoons. The intensity time series in both the concentric and non-concentric composites are studied. Intensity of the concentric typhoons tends to peak at the time of secondary eyewall formation; but the standard model of intensification followed by weakening is valid for only half of the cases. Approximately 74% of the cases intensify 24 h before secondary eyewall formation and approximately 72% of the cases weaken 24 h after formation. The concentric composites have a much slower

Evaporation and combustion of LOX under supercritical and subcritical conditions

The objective is to study the evaporation and combustion of LOX under supercritical and subcritical conditions both experimentally and theoretically. In the evaporation studies, evaporation rate and surface temperature were measured when LOX vaporizing in helium environments at pressures ranging from 5 to 68 atm. A Varian 3700 gas chromatograph was employed to measure the oxygen concentration above the LOX surface. For the combustion tests, high-magnification video photography was used to record direct images of the flame shape of a LOX/H2/He laminar diffusion flame. The gas composition in the post-flame region is also being measured with the gas sampling and chromatography analysis. These data are being used to validate the theoretical model. A comprehensive theoretical model with the consideration of the solubility of ambient gases as well as variable thermophysical properties was formulated and solved numerically to study the gasification and burning of LOX at elevated pressures. The calculated flame shape agreed reasonably well with the edge of the observed luminous flame surface. The effect of gravity on the flame structure of laminar diffusion flames was found to be significant. In addition, the predicted results using the flame-sheet model were compared with those based upon full equilibrium calculations (which considered the formation of intermediate species) at supercritical pressures. Except at the flame front where temperature exceeded 2,800 K, the flame-sheet and equilibrium solutions in terms of temperature distributions were in very close agreement. The temperature deviation in the neighborhood of the flame front is caused by the effect of high-temperature dissociation

Resonant Enhancement of Charge Density Wave Diffraction in the Rare-Earth Tritellurides

We performed resonant soft X-ray diffraction on known charge density wave (CDW) compounds, rare earth tri-tellurides. Near the $M_5$ (3d - 4f) absorption edge of rare earth ions, an intense diffraction peak is detected at a wavevector identical to that of CDW state hosted on Te$_2$ planes, indicating a CDW-induced modulation on the rare earth ions. Surprisingly, the temperature dependence of the diffraction peak intensity demonstrates an exponential increase at low temperatures, vastly different than that of the CDW order parameter. Assuming 4f multiplet splitting due to the CDW states,we present a model to calculate X-ray absorption spectrum and resonant profile of the diffraction peak, agreeing well with experimental observations. Our results demonstrate a situation where the temperature dependence of resonant X-ray diffraction peak intensity is not directly related to the intrinsic behavior of the order parameter associated with the electronic order, but is dominated by the thermal occupancy of the valence states.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Combustion of LOX with H2(sub g) under subcritical, critical, and supercritical conditions (Task 1) and experimental observation of dense spray and mixing of impinging jets (Task 2)

The objective was to achieve a better understanding of the combustion processes of liquid oxygen and gaseous hydrogen under broad range of pressure covering subcritical, critical, and supercritical conditions. The scope of the experimental work falls into the following areas: (1) design of the overall experimental setup; (2) modification of an existing windowed high pressure chamber; (3) design of the LOX feeding system; (4) provision of the safety features in the test rig design; (5) LOX cleanliness requirements; (6) cold shock testing; (7) implementation of data acquisition systems; (8) preliminary tests for system checkout; (9) modification of LOX feeding system; and (10) evaporation tests. Progress in each area is discussed

Study of the Anti-Proliferative Activity of 5-Substituted 4,7-Dimethoxy-1,3-Benzodioxole Derivatives of SY-1 from Antrodia camphorata on Human COLO 205 Colon Cancer Cells

A set of 10 4,7-dimethoxy-1,3-benzodioxole derivatives based on a lead compound previously discovered by our group, SY-1, which was isolated from Antrodia camphorata, were evaluated for their in vitro inhibitory activity on human colorectal carcinoma cells (COLO 205). Structure-activity relationship studies of the 10 compounds indicated the importance of the chain length of the alkyl group at the 5-position, and the 2-propenyl substituent named “apiole” exhibited the most potent inhibitory activity. In the present study, we demonstrate that the SY-1 analogue “apiole” decreased the proliferation of COLO 205 cells, but not that of normal human colonic epithelial cells (FHC). The G0/G1 cell cycle arrest induced by apiole (75–225 μM) was associated with significantly increased levels of p53, p21 and p27 and decreased levels of cyclin D1. Concerning COLO 205 cell apoptosis, apiole (>150 μM) treatment significantly increased the levels of cleaved caspases 3, 8, 9 and bax/bcl-2 ratio and induced ladder formation in DNA fragmentation assay and sub-G1 peak in flow cytometry analysis. These findings suggest that apiole can suppress COLO 205 cell growth; however, the detailed mechanisms of these processes require further investigation

FastEval Parkinsonism: an instant deep learning-assisted video-based online system for Parkinsonian motor symptom evaluation.

The Motor Disorder Society's Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) is designed to assess bradykinesia, the cardinal symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). However, it cannot capture the all-day variability of bradykinesia outside the clinical environment. Here, we introduce FastEval Parkinsonism ( https://fastevalp.cmdm.tw/ ), a deep learning-driven video-based system, providing users to capture keypoints, estimate the severity, and summarize in a report. Leveraging 840 finger-tapping videos from 186 individuals (103 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), 24 participants with atypical parkinsonism (APD), 12 elderly with mild parkinsonism signs (MPS), and 47 healthy controls (HCs)), we employ a dilated convolution neural network with two data augmentation techniques. Our model achieves acceptable accuracies (AAC) of 88.0% and 81.5%. The frequency-intensity (FI) value of thumb-index finger distance was indicated as a pivotal hand parameter to quantify the performance. Our model also shows the usability for multi-angle videos, tested in an external database enrolling over 300 PD patients

Prevalence and Effectiveness of Laxative Use Among Elderly Residents in a Regional Hospital Affiliated Nursing Home in Hsinchu County

Background: Long-term care residents are susceptible to constipation and one-half to three quarter of older nursing home residents receive laxatives regularly. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the factors related to abnormal bowel function and explore the effectiveness of laxative treatment among the elderly residents of a nursing home. Patients and Methods: A total of 110 residents older than 65 years old was enrolled in this study. The following variables were gathered: age, gender, body mass index (BMI), length of stay, daily fluid intake, type of food, functional level, cognitive ability, physical therapy status, somatic and psychiatric diseases, number of medications, and medication use. The use and dosage of laxatives were recorded by means of Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification system. Normal bowel function was defined as defecation frequency from three defecations per day to three defecations per week and stool consistency score of three to five on Bristol Stool Form Scale. A comparison between groups with normal and abnormal bowel function was drawn. Results: Low BMI, increased fluid intake, liquid food intake, poor functional level, poor cognition, and a history of stroke were significantly associated with altered bowel function (P < 0.05). The most frequently used laxatives were glycerol, senna glycoside, and magnesium oxide. There were significant differences in laxative regimens between residents with normal and altered bowel function; those with altered bowel function tended to take more laxatives than those with normal bowel function. Conclusions: This study suggested that treatment of constipation in the nursing home was unsatisfactory. To improve treatment outcomes in those susceptible to altered bowel function, a coordinated approach with involvement of physicians, nursing staff, and other professionals including dieticians and pharmacists seems necessary

On-Call Duty Effects on Sleep-State Physiological Stability in Male Medical Interns

Background: On-call duty among medical interns is characterized by sleep deprivation and stressful working conditions, both of which alter cardiac autonomic modulation. We hypothesized that sleep stability decreased in medical interns during on-call duty. We used cardiopulmonary-coupling (CPC) analysis to test our hypothesis. Methods: We used electrocardiogram (ECG)-based CPC analysis to quantify physiological parameters of sleep stability in 13 medical interns during on-call and on-call duty-free periods. There were ten 33.5-h on-call duty shifts per month for interns, each followed by 2 on-call duty-free days, over 3 months. Measurements during sleep were collected before, during, and after an on-call shift. Measurements were repeated 3 months later during an on-call duty-free period. Results: The medical interns had significantly reduced stable sleep, and displayed increased latency to the first epoch of stable sleep during the on-call night shift, compared to the pre-call and on-call duty-free nights. Interns also had significantly increased rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep during the on-call night shift, compared to the pre-call and on-call duty-free nights. Conclusion: Medical interns suffer disrupted sleep stability and continuity during on-call night shifts. The ECG-based CPC analysis provides a straightforward means to quantify sleep quality and stability in medical staff performing shift work under stressful conditions