Salt Secretion Is Essential for Xero-Halophyte \u3cem\u3eReaumuria soongorica\u3c/em\u3e Responding to Osmotic Stress

Reaumuria soongorica, a xero-halophyte semi-shrub belonging to Tamaricaceae with excellent adaptability to adverse arid and salinity environments of northwest China, serves important ecological roles in the improvement of saline-alkali soil and dune stabilisation, and also is an attractive fodder shrub in desert steppe (Ma et al. 2011). Previous studies demonstrated that secreting salt via salt glands is an important strategy for R. soongorica adapting to high salinity environments (Zhou et al. 2012). However, very little is known about the role of salt secretion in the plant’s responses to drought. Therefore, in the present work, R. soongorica seedlings were subjected to osmotic stress in the presence or absence of additional NaCl to determine the potential relationship between salt secretion and drought tolerance of R. soongorica seedlings

Seasonal and interannual ice velocity changes of Polar Record Glacier, East Antarctica

We present a study of seasonal and interannual ice velocity changes at Polar Record Glacier, East Antarctica, using ERS-1/2, Envisat and PALSAR data with D-InSAR and intensity tracking. Ice flow showed seasonal variations at the front of the glacier tongue. Velocities in winter were 19% less than velocities during summer. No significant interannual changes were detected. Ice velocities in the grounding zone and grounded glacier did not show clear seasonal or interannual changes. The distributio of the seasonal variations suggests that the cause for the changes should be localized. Possible causes are seasonal sea-ice changes and iceberg blocking. Satellite images show that the sea ice surrounding Polar Record Glacier undergoes seasonal changes. Frozen sea ice in winter slowed the huge iceberg, and provided increased resistance to the glacier flow. The interaction between the glacier tongue, ice berg and sea ice significantly influences their flow pattern

Relation Between Gravitational Mass and Baryonic Mass for Non-Rotating and Rapidly Rotating Neutron Stars

With a selected sample of neutron star (NS) equations of state (EOSs) that are consistent with the current observations and have a range of maximum masses, we investigate the relations between NS gravitational mass Mg and baryonic mass Mb, and the relations between the maximum NS mass supported through uniform rotation (Mmax) and that of nonrotating NSs (MTOV). We find that for an EOS-independent quadratic, universal transformation formula (Mb=Mg+A×M2g)(Mb=Mg+A×Mg2), the best-fit A value is 0.080 for non-rotating NSs, 0.064 for maximally rotating NSs, and 0.073 when NSs with arbitrary rotation are considered. The residual error of the transformation is ∼ 0.1M⊙ for non-spin or maximum-spin, but is as large as ∼ 0.2M⊙ for all spins. For different EOSs, we find that the parameter A for non-rotating NSs is proportional to R−11.4R1.4−1 (where R1.4 is NS radius for 1.4M⊙ in units of km). For a particular EOS, if one adopts the best-fit parameters for different spin periods, the residual error of the transformation is smaller, which is of the order of 0.01M⊙ for the quadratic form and less than 0.01M⊙ for the cubic form ((Mb=Mg+A1×M2g+A2×M3g)(Mb=Mg+A1×Mg2+A2×Mg3)). We also find a very tight and general correlation between the normalized mass gain due to spin Δm = (Mmax − MTOV)/MTOV and the spin period normalized to the Keplerian period PP, i.e., log10Δm=(−2.74±0.05)log10P+log10(0.20±0.01)log10Δm=(−2.74±0.05)log10P+log10(0.20±0.01), which is independent of EOS models. These empirical relations are helpful to study NS-NS mergers with a long-lived NS merger product using multi-messenger data. The application of our results to GW170817 is discussed

PandA(Box) flies on Bluesky: maintainable and user-friendly fly scans with Mamba at HEPS

At the High Energy Photon Source (HEPS), the upper-level control system for PandABox has been ported to Bluesky, enabling the combination of both components' flexibility in fly-scan applications. In less than 600 lines of easily customisable and extensible backend code, provided are full control of PandABox's TCP server in native ophyd, automated configuration (also including wiring) of "PandA blocks" for constant-speed mapping experiments of various dimensions, as well as generation of scans deliberately fragmented to deal with hardware limits in numbers of exposure frames or sequencer table entries. Based on this backend, a user-friendly Mamba frontend is developed for X-ray fluorescence (XRF) mapping experiments, which provides fully online visual feedback.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Appl. Sc

Progress and outlook on advanced fly scans based on Mamba

Development related to PandABox-based fly scans is an important part of the active work on Mamba, the software framework for beamline experiments at the High Energy Photon Source (HEPS); presented in this paper is the progress of our development, and some outlook for advanced fly scans based on knowledge learned during the process. By treating fly scans as a collaboration between a few loosely coupled subsystems - motors / mechanics, detectors / data processing, sequencer devices like PandABox - systematic analyses of issues in fly scans are conducted. Interesting products of these analyses include a general-purpose software-based fly-scan mechanism, a general way to design undulator-monochromator fly scans, a sketch of how to practically implement online tuning of fly-scan behaviours based on processing of the data acquired, and many more. Based on the results above, an architectural discussion on >=10kHz fly scans is given.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted by Synchrotron Rad. New

Isolation and characterization of Edwardsiella ictaluri strains as pathogens from diseased yellow catfish Pelteobagrus fulvidraco (Richardson) cultured in China

Yellow catfish Pelteobagrus fulvidraco (Richardson) is a commercially important fish generally distributed in Southeast Asian countries. The well-known aetiological agent of enteric septicaemia of catfish, Edwardsiella ictaluri, was isolated from diseased yellow catfish P. fulvidraco (Richardson) reared at two commercial fisheries in China. The economic losses due to the high mortalities (about 50%) caused by this bacterium have been increasing annually. The affected fish presented two different, typical symptoms: pale gills, slight exophthalmia and a 'hole in the head', and haemorrhage on the opercula, in the skin under the jaw, creating a 'hole under the jaw'. These diseases were found frequently in cultured yellow catfish throughout China. The isolates from both outbreaks were all Gram negative, facultatively anaerobic and short rod. Morphological and biochemical tests and phylogenetic analysis based on the 16S rDNA sequences all strongly indicated that these yellow catfish isolates were highly identical to the known E. ictaluri. In addition, the isolates possessed the typical plasmid profile of E. ictaluri. Experimental infection assays were conducted and pathogenicity (by an intraperitoneal injection) was demonstrated in yellow catfish and channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus. The results showed that yellow catfish isolates were quite conservative pheno-typically and genetically, and were able to cause two different, typical symptoms in this fish under unknown conditions and mechanism

Application of Local Fractional Series Expansion Method to Solve Klein-Gordon Equations on Cantor Sets

We use the local fractional series expansion method to solve the Klein-Gordon equations on Cantor sets within the local fractional derivatives. The analytical solutions within the nondifferential terms are discussed. The obtained results show the simplicity and efficiency of the present technique with application to the problems of the liner differential equations on Cantor sets