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In this paper, we investigate the thermodynamic properties of the charged AdS Gauss–Bonnet black holes and their associations with the Lyapunov exponent. The chaotic features of the black holes and the isobaric heat capacity characterized by the Lyapunov exponent are studied to reveal the thermodynamic stability of the black hole phases. By considering both the timelike and null geodesics, we find that the relationship between the Lyapunov exponent and the Hawking temperature can accurately represent the features of the Small/Large phase transition and even the triple point. We also reveal the properties of the difference in the Lyapunov exponent as an order parameter. It is demonstrated that there is a negative correlation between the Lyapunov exponent and the size of the black hole shadow, which can be used to bridge the thermodynamic properties and the shadow of black holes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Object manipulation is one of the most fundamental tasks in 3D user interfaces. Compared with interacting with objects within reach, remote object manipulation is often more challenging, which is often an iterative process that need clutching. However, while there are many interaction techniques designed for manipulating remote objects, it is not well studied the effects of clutching mechanism on remote object manipulation tasks. In this paper, we present a controlled experiment to evaluate the effects of two clutching mechanisms (Normal Clutching vs. Easy Clutching) on 3-DOF translation, 3-DOF rotation and 6-DOF docking tasks under various tasks settings. The results show that easy clutching can significantly save more completion time and clutching time compared with Normal Clutching. In addition, the results also reveal that easy clutching can be more effective especially when dealing with hard tasks and long user-target distance. We also find that users prefer easy clutching over Normal Clutching, indicating that well designed clutching mechanism can effectively improve user experience in manipulation tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aesthetic experiences play an important role in human culture and spiritual life and are closely related to aesthetic perception and appreciation of art, music, literature and natural landscapes. With the development of neuroscience and cognitive psychology, our understanding of aesthetic experiences continues to deepen; in this context, the study of neuroplasticity has attracted widespread attention. This study explores in detail how this process affects the perception of aesthetic cognition, thereby enhancing the aesthetic experience in several key ways. The study finds that neuroplasticity plays a role in the evolution of an individual’s perception and appreciation of beauty, as it facilitates adjustments in perception, attention, emotion, and cross-perceptual integration based on individual experiences. These findings provide a theoretical basis for deepening the perception and appreciation of beauty and insights to better understand and advance the aesthetic experience provided by art, music and literature. Future research will explore how to maximise the use of neuroplasticity to enhance the quality and depth of the aesthetic experience, advance the field of aesthetic psychology and art research and further enrich and satisfy individuals’ perception and experience of beauty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the important internal curing agents for cement-based materials, inorganic/organic composite water absorbing materials, which has hydrophilic groups and three-dimensional network structures, exhibits excellent water absorption, water retention, and water release properties. By introducing inorganic/organic composite water absorbing materials into cement-based materials, their water absorption and release characteristics can automatically adjust the internal relative humidity of cement-based materials, promote hydration reactions, reduce self shrinkage and early cracking of cement-based materials, and thereby improve mechanical properties and durability. The preparation methods, structural characteristics and absorption/desorption behavior of inorganic/organic composite internal curing materials (CICA) were introduced. The impact on the hydration process, microstructure, macroscopic properties and durability of cement-based materials were summarized. The development prospects of CICA in concrete applications were prospected, providing theoretical guidance and technical reference for the application of CICA in cement-based internal curing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of wen 文 has multiple meanings, but it plays an exceptionally important role in the development of Confucianism and Chinese philosophical terms. Pre-Qin Confucianism 先秦儒学 and Song Confucianism (Song dynasty Neo-Confucians 宋代儒学/宋代新儒家) are two important representatives in the history of Confucianism. Confucius has insisted that although the heaven is not going to destroy wen, wen must exist in everyone's xing 性, and only when placed within a community can it develop. In Pre-Qin Confucianism, wen completed the transformation from the long established social political structure of the Zhou dynasty and its corresponding moral principles to the consciousness of consummate conduct and ritual propriety based on human instinct and humanistic rationality. Song dynasty Neo-Confucians inherited this Confucian mission and developed the spirit of wen in their period. They emphasized the necessity of learning classics and then writing articles to get closer to the heart-mind of sages and then to build a cultural community together. Both Pre-Qin Confucianism and Song Confucianism have been applying their viewpoints to achieve a community, which is "this culture of ours" 斯文. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present Planet Anima, a virtual environment designed for hosting virtual graduation events in the metaverse. Through this digital space, we successfully organized an online event under the COVID-19 circumstance, including a graduation ceremony and a student art exhibition. Our user study analyzes the Planet Anima experience with a focus on collaborative engagement and creative expression. Furthermore, we explore the impact of platform choice (headset VR vs. desktop VR) on metaverse user experience. Our findings demonstrate that Planet Anima can facilitate the co-experiences that foster creativity. Notably, the results indicate that headset VR outperforms desktop VR in terms of presence, social presence, and emotional involvement. This study also highlights the gaps between virtual and physical experiences, identifying the challenge of cybersickness associated with headset VR. These insights contribute to enhancing the user experience within the metaverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water body extraction is a typical task in the semantic segmentation of remote sensing images (RSIs). Deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) outperform traditional methods in mining visual features; however, due to the inherent convolutional mechanism of the network, spatial details and abstract semantic representations at different levels are difficult to capture accurately at the same time, and then the extraction results decline to become suboptimal, especially on narrow areas and boundaries. To address the above-mentioned problem, a multiscale successive attention fusion network, named MSAFNet, is proposed to efficiently aggregate the multiscale features from two aspects. A successive attention fusion module (SAFM) is first devised to extract multiscale and fine-grained features of water bodies, while a joint attention module (JAM) is proposed to further mine salient semantic information by jointly modeling contextual dependencies. Furthermore, the multi-level features extracted by the above-mentioned modules are aggregated by a feature fusion module (FFM) so that the edges of water bodies are well mapped, directly improving the segmentation of various water bodies. Extensive experiments were conducted on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Lake (QTPL) and the Land-cOVEr Domain Adaptive semantic segmentation (LoveDA) datasets. Numerically, MSAFNet reached the highest accuracy on both QTPL and LoveDA datasets, including Kappa, MIoU, FWIoU, F1, and OA, outperforming several mainstream methods. Regarding the QTPL dataset, MSAFNet peaked at 99.14% and 98.97% in terms of F1 and OA. Although the LoveDA dataset is more challenging, MSAFNet retained the best performance, with F1 and OA being 97.69% and 95.87%. Additionally, visual inspections exhibited consistency with numerical evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the proposal of China's carbon neutrality target, the traditional fossil energy industry continues to decline, and the proportion of new energy continues to increase. New energy power systems have high requirements for peak shaving and energy storage, but China's current energy storage facilities are seriously insufficient in number and scale. The unique features of abandoned mines offer considerable potential for the construction of large-scale pumped storage power stations. Several countries have reported the conversion of abandoned mines to pumped storage plants, and a pilot project for the conversion of an underground reservoir group has been formalized in China. A feasibility study that considered the natural conditions, mine conditions, safety conditions, and economic benefits revealed that the construction of pumped storage power stations using abandoned mines could ameliorate several economic, ecological, and social problems, including resource utilization, ecological restoration, and population resettlement. The construction of pumped storage power stations using abandoned mines not only utilizes underground space with no mining value (reduced cost and construction period), but also improves the peak-load regulation and energy storage urgently needed for the development of power grid systems. Combined with the underground space and surface water resources of the Shitai Mine in Anhui, China, a plan for the construction of a pumped storage power station was proposed. The challenges faced by the current project were evaluated, further research suggested, and demonstration projects established in order to help achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sunny, sparsely populated sand, gravel, and other desert regions known as the Gobi and desert regions (GDRs) have significant advantages and enormous potential in the development of solar resources. Based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform and multi-source datasets, this study used the random forest algorithm to identify the current distribution of GDRs in China, analyzed the carbon mitigation potential (CMP), and further explored the layout optimization strategies for the future development of China's GDRs photovoltaic (PV) industry. Research has found that only 2.25 % of the land in GDRs of the five provincial-level administrative units involved in GDRs was used for PV development, and there was still a large amount of land suitable for PV development; Regional solar energy resources were crucial for PV development, but policy support and terrain characteristics could not be underestimated; When the installed area of GDRs, which is most suitable for installing PV facilities, reaches 50 %, it can meet the electricity consumption of the entire Chinese society in 2022. At this time, the CMP was about 5.39 × 1012 kg CO 2. The research results can provide decision-making basis for China's PV industry, and the research framework is also applicable to other similar regions. • The current distribution of Gobi and desert regions (GDRs) in China was identified using the random forest algorithm. • The carbon mitigation potential (CMP) of photovoltaic (PV) systems in the GDRs was explored under different development scenarios. • The proportion of GDRs that underwent PV development was only 2.25 %, and its CMP was enormous. • The critical areas proposed for PV installation in GDRs were spatially visualized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Two types of sorption sites are involved in the sorption of ENR on HCP. • Repulsive energy between HCP and PS decreases with PS increasing concentration. • PS promotes the sorption of ENR by HCP via electrostatic, π−π and n−π interactions. • Removal efficiency of ENR in actual water samples reaches 98.2% after adding PS. • Study provides new insights for more effective removal of emerging contaminants. The conventional treatment processes adopted by wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are unable to completely remove antibiotics and microplastics (MPs), resulting in the discharge of residual antibiotics and MPs into the environment, which poses threats to both ecological and human health. Therefore, targeted removal of residual antibiotics and MPs in effluent from WWTPs is crucial. Moreover, the presence of MPs in the wastewater system is likely to affect the removal of antibiotics. Here, the impact of polystyrene (PS) on the sorption characteristics and mechanisms of enrofloxacin (ENR) by hyper-cross-linked polymers (HCPs) was studied. The possibility of collaborative treatment of antibiotics and MPs was also discussed. The results showed that PS could affect the sorption of ENR by interacting with HCPs. The addition of PS increased dispersibility of HCPs and the number of sorption sites, thereby enhancing the sorption of ENR. However, as the concentration of PS increased, the repulsive energy between HCPs and PS decreased from 600 to 280 kT, leading to further heterogeneous aggregation between HCPs and PS. It prevented some of the sorption sites from being exposed to ENR, thereby reducing the promotion effect from 57% to 13%. Additionally, PS facilitated the sorption of ENR through promoting electrostatic attraction, π−π, and n−π interactions. The presence of PS also enhanced the removal of ENR in actual water samples with the efficiency of 98.2%. While removing antibiotics, MPs can also be separated from sewage by forming aggregates with HCPs. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of MPs in the treatment of antibiotics within wastewater systems and offers new insights for the collaborative treatment of emerging contaminants in wastewater systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grassland degradation seriously threatens the ability of grassland to provide ecosystem services. Grassland ecological restoration and sustainable management decision making depends on an accurate understanding of the impacts of grassland degradation on ecosystem services. Based on the assessment of grassland degradation and four key ecosystem services, including the net primary production (NPP), ecosystem carbon pool (EC), soil conservation (SC), and soil loss by wind (SL), the impacts of grassland degradation on ecosystem services and their relationships were analyzed. The impacts of climate change and grazing pressure on the relationship between grassland degradation and ecosystem services were revealed. Based on the "climate change and grazing pressure-grassland degradation-ecosystem services" network, the study puts forward specific suggestions on grassland ecological restoration and sustainable management under the premise of fully balancing ecological restoration and stakeholder relationships. The results showed that grassland degradation had a significant impact on ecosystem services and their relationships, but it varied with the types of ecosystem services. Although the degraded grassland in the study area has been in a state of recovery and ecosystem services have been improving in the past 20 years, the degradation of grassland in some areas has intensified, and there are still ecological risks, so it is necessary to continue to carry out ecological restoration work. On this basis, taking the local conditions into consideration, grassland ecological restoration and sustainable management policy suggestions were proposed. The study can provide a scientific reference for ecological protection and sustainable development in arid and semi-arid areas, and help to improve human well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extracting water bodies is an important task in remote sensing imagery (RSI) interpretation. Deep convolution neural networks (DCNNs) show great potential in feature learning; they are widely used in the water body interpretation of RSI. However, the accuracy of DCNNs is still unsatisfactory due to differences in the many hetero-features of water bodies, such as spectrum, geometry, and spatial size. To address the problem mentioned above, this paper proposes a multiscale normalization attention network (MSNANet) which can accurately extract water bodies in complicated scenarios. First of all, a multiscale normalization attention (MSNA) module was designed to merge multiscale water body features and highlight feature representation. Then, an optimized atrous spatial pyramid pooling (OASPP) module was developed to refine the representation by leveraging context information, which improves segmentation performance. Furthermore, a head module (FEH) for feature enhancing was devised to realize high-level feature enhancement and reduce training time. The extensive experiments were carried out on two benchmarks: the Surface Water dataset and the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau Lake dataset. The results indicate that the proposed model outperforms current mainstream models on OA (overall accuracy), f1-score, kappa, and MIoU (mean intersection over union). Moreover, the effectiveness of the proposed modules was proven to be favorable through ablation study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key to the construction of underground reservoirs in abandoned mines is the construction of coal pillar-artificial dams, and the choice of bonding parameters between the coal pillars and artificial dams is the deciding factor that determines the engineering stability. Based on the analysis of the force state of coal pillar-artificial dams, the influence of the interface angle was analyzed. Seven sets of coal pillar-artificial dam specimens were prepared and a PFC3D numerical model was constructed to carry out the uniaxial compression test without lateral pressure. Based on the strength, deformation, and energy evolution characteristics of the coal pillar-artificial dam, the influence of the angle of the coal pillar-artificial dam interface on the performance of the specimen was analyzed. The research results showed that the force state of the coal pillar-artificial dam can be divided into three types. The composite simulation curve showed obvious postpeak viscosity. The compressive strength, peak strain, and average dissipated energy curves of the coal pillar-artificial dam showed a unimodal trend that first increased and then decreased. The total energy and elastic energy of the coal pillar-artificial dam showed an increasing trend during loading. The simulated initiation stress and damage stress of the coal pillar-artificial dam specimens were intermediate to that of the coal pillars and the artificial dams, which first increased and then decreased with the increase in inclination, reaching the peak at 70°. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the contact vibration problem of an elastic half-space coated with functionally graded materials (FGMs) subject to a rigid spherical punch. A static force superimposing a dynamic time-harmonic force acts on the rigid spherical punch. Firstly, we give the static contact problem of FGMs by a least-square fitting approach. Next, the dynamic contact pressure is solved by employing the perturbation method. Lastly, the dynamic contact stiffness with different dynamic contact displacement conditions is derived for the FGM coated half-space. The effects of the gradient index, coating thickness, internal friction, and punch radius on the dynamic contact stiffness factor are discussed in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetic compression anastomosis, also known as magnamosis, is a safe and feasible method for digestive tract anastomosis. However, the pathological process involved in magnamosis of the digestive tract has not been investigated. This study aimed to establish the stages of digestive tract magnamosis in a rat model. Eighty-four Sprague–Dawley albino rats (200–250 g) were randomly divided into 14 groups (n = 6 per group). All rats underwent colonic magnamosis. Starting from postoperative day (POD) 1, one group of rats was sacrificed every other day to obtain the specimens. Burst pressure at the anastomotic site of each specimen was examined. Gross and histological examination of the anastomotic site was performed to establish the stages of the digestive tract magnamosis. Colonic magnamosis was successfully performed in all rats and the mean anastomosis time was 5.62 ± 0.91 min. The postoperative survival rate was 100%. The lowest anastomotic burst pressure was 78.33 ± 3.44 mmHg on POD3. The anastomotic burst pressure gradually increased and stabilized on POD21. Macroscopic and histological examination showed that the anastomotic mucosal and serosal layer did not heal on POD1. The serosal layer of the anastomosis healed by adhesion on POD3, and the mucosal layer began to heal on POD3-11 and was established by POD21. According to the anastomotic bursting pressure, digestive tract magnamosis can be staged into the magnetic maintenance, fragile, strengthening, and stable phases, which on histology correspond to the serosal adhesion formation, serosal healing, mucosal healing, and stereotyping, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The contribution of autophagy to cancer therapy resistance remains complex, mainly owing to the discrepancy of autophagy mechanisms in different therapy. However, the potential mechanisms of autophagy-mediated resistance to icotinib have yet to be elucidated. Methods: The effect of autophagy in icotinib resistance was examined using a series of in vitro and in vivo assays. The results above were further verified in biopsy specimens of lung cancer patients before and after icotinib or gefitinib treatment. Results: Icotinib increased ATG3, ATG5, and ATG7 expression, but without affecting Beclin-1, VPS34 and ATBG14 levels in icotinib-resistant lung cancer cells. Autophagy blockade by 3-MA or silencing Beclin-1 had no effects on resistance to icotinib. CQ effectively restored lung cancer cell sensitivity to icotinib in vitro and in vivo. Notably, aberrantly activated STAT3 and highly expressed FOXM1 were required for autophagy induced by icotinib, without the involvement of AMPK/mTOR pathway in this process. Alterations of STAT3 activity using genetic and/or pharmacological methods effectively affected FOXM1 and ATG7 levels increased by icotinib, with altering autophagy and icotinib-mediated apoptosis in resistant cells. Furthermore, silencing FOXM1 impaired up-regulated ATG7 induced by STAT3-CA and icotinib. STAT3/FOXM1 signalling blockade also reversed resistance to icotinib in vivo. Finally, we found a negative correlation between STAT3/FOXM1/ATG7 signalling activity and epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) treatment efficacy in patients undergoing EGFR-TKIs treatment. Conclusions: Our findings support that STAT3/FOXM1/ATG7 signalling-induced autophagy is a novel mechanism of resistance to icotinib, and provide insights into potential clinical values of ATG7-dependent autophagy in icotinib treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Utilizing a 2DHG, the study achieves dual-channel distribution, enlarging the FOV within a limited angular bandwidth. • Employing regional filter plates during exposure controls local light inten- sity, ensuring uniform brightness across a wide eyebox range. • The 2DHG holographic waveguide realized a diagonal FOV of 58◦, with a remarkable 79.8 % brightness uniformity in the eyebox range. Augmented Reality (AR) technology is a technique that integrates virtual im- ages with the real environment. With the continuous improvement of comput- ing power in mobile electronic products, mobile devices with AR capabilities are gradually becoming the next generation computing platform. When eval- uating the performance of holographic waveguides, key indicators include the field of view (FOV), eye relief, and eye box uniformity. This study proposes a method for designing holographic waveguides with a large field of view and high uniformity based on a two-dimensional holographic grating (2DHG). By lever- aging the multiplexing characteristics of photopolymer, we superimposed two incoherent one-dimensional gratings on a holographic material layer, achieving dual-channel propagation of the field of view, with each channel responsible for half of the FOV. In the end, these two channels are stitched together to form a complete FOV. This method not only enlarges the eye box but also helps im- prove the system's FOV. By controlling the transmittance of the exposure area, the uniformity of the brightness of the wide-field eye box is improved. Finally, we conducted a performance analysis of the prepared holographic waveguide, verifying the feasibility and correctness of the proposed 2DHG waveguide in two-dimensional eye box expansion and field of view extension. Through eye box expansion, the eye box reached 14 mm × 17 mm, the diagonal field of view reached 58◦, the eye relief is 15 mm, and the eye box brightness uniformity reached 79.7 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The pattern-process-service-sustainability framework was proposed. • A regional ecosystem quality evaluation index system was constructed. • The regional sustainable development level was evaluated and analyzed. • Regions with a high ecosystem quality tended to have higher sustainable development level. The evaluation of ecosystem quality (EQ) is crucial for sustainable regional development. Existing studies have often focused on a single aspect of the evaluation of EQ, which cannot capture the whole picture of changes in EQ. Therefore, an urgent need exists to construct a comprehensive evaluation system for regional EQ and clarify the relationship between EQ and sustainable development level (SDL). This study takes the West Liao River Basin as an example, constructs a regional EQ evaluation index system based on the "pattern-process-service" framework, evaluates and analyzes the spatial and temporal evolution of EQ as well as the relationship between EQ and SDL in the basin from 2000 to 2020. The regional SDL is also analyzed by combining the indicator system with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), analyzing the relationship between watershed EQ and SDL and its driving mechanism by using the coupling coordination degree model and Geodetector method and then exploring the strategies for sustainable management of watershed ecosystems. The spatial variation of EQ in the study area from 2000 to 2020 was found to be significant and characterized by increasing inter-annual changes; regions with a high EQ tended to have higher SDLs and SDL evaluation indicators contributed more to the coupling and coordination between EQ and SDL than EQ evaluation indicators. The study developed a regional EQ evaluation system under the perspective of ecosystem services, constructed a county-scale SDL evaluation system, and revealed the relationship between regional EQ and SDL. The evaluation results can provide decision-making references for sustainable regional management. In addition, the EQ evaluation system developed in this study is generalized and objective, thus being applicable to other watershed regions with complex landscape patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypertensive disorder in pregnancy is a disease that occurs during pregnancy. We aimed to analyze the morbidity and maternal and infant outcomes with respect to the hypertensive disorder in pregnancy in China in 2018. Clinical data of 38 590 cases from 161 hospitals were retrospectively collected. The differences in morbidity and maternal and infant mortality among the major regions and provinces were compared. The overall national average morbidity was 4.74%, and the ratios of gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, eclampsia, chronic hypertension, and chronic hypertension with superimposed preeclampsia were 29.17%, 55.02%, 0.66%, 6.53%, and 8.62%, respectively. The overall maternal mortality was 0.61/100 000, and the case fatality was 0.13%. Morbidity associated with hypertensive disorder in pregnancy was 7.74% in North China, 6.62% in Northwest China, 6.40% in Central China, 5.83% in Northeast China, 4.28% in East China, 3.85% in South China, and 2.88% in Southwest China. The morbidity in each province was 1.62-11.28%. The overall perinatal mortality was 3.59% (81.09% for stillbirths; 18.91% for neonatal deaths). Perinatal mortality decreased with increasing gestational weeks from 24 to 37 + 6 weeks. Perinatal mortality for delivery at 32 weeks of gestation in all regions of the country was <10%. Morbidity varied across regions in China, with the lowest in Southwest and the highest in North China. The low maternal mortality is related to the large-scale development of standardized maternal health care in China. For severe hypertensive disorder patients, gestation should be prolonged to 32 weeks as often as possible for better neonatal survival rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on jet grouting materials mainly focus on the aggregates in cement or the environment where they are maintained and rarely deal with the cohesiveness, reinforcement load-bearing characteristics, and surface spalling. In this study, cement slurries with different colloid contents were prepared to explore the characteristics and reinforcement effect of broken gangues. These were then subjected to mechanical testing to measure the strength and axial strain performance, and the failure modes and failure patterns were discussed. The results indicated that the colloid component has a significant strengthening effect on the early strength of the samples. As the age increased, the sample axial strain and elastic modulus of the colloid cement paste increased as the colloid component provides viscoelasticity when it resists deformation. The sample strength of cement paste decreases after the addition of broken gangue while the strength of class E samples increases significantly during each age. The cement paste sample showed penetrating splitting failure, the colloidal component effectively controlled the peeling of sample surface, and the failure mode after adding gangue was relatively complicated. The instability modes of the samples are divided into dispersed load-bearing instability and cumulative load-bearing instability, and the content of colloid components affects the failure mode of the samples. A colloid component proportion of 23.33% is the optimal choice, which has an obvious reinforcement effect on the broken gangue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital polymerase chain reaction (dPCR) is an approach for absolute nucleic acid quantification with high sensitivity. Although several successful commercial dPCR devices have been developed to date, further miniaturizing device dimensions, decreasing cross-contamination, and improving automation level are still research highlights. In this study, we developed a fully contamination-free dPCR detection chip with fluorescence flow cytometry and micro droplet approach. A bifunctional cross-structure (BFCS) was designed to realize monodisperse sample droplet generation in forward flow and droplet detection in backward flow with simple pneumatic control and fixed chip position. In order to improve droplet detection efficiency and accuracy, droplets morphology and sequence pattern during microfluidic droplet generation and backward flow droplet detection at the same cross-structure were observed and analyzed under different pneumatic pressures. In addition, during backward flow droplet detection, an optimized declination angle of the chip was applied to increase droplet reflux rates. For the validation of PCR performance, temperature changing processes during PCR cycles were achieved by heating the monodispersed droplet array with a customized PCR amplification device. The fluorescence signal of each droplet right after passing the cross-structure was excitated and detected. The absolute quantification ability of our integrated dPCR microfluidic chip utilizing flow fluorescence cytometry was tested and verified with Influenza A virus gene (from 7.5 copies/μL to 30000 copies/μL). Thus, our platform provides a novel and integrated approach for ddPCR analysis. Fig.1. Schematics of ddPCR NA detection with bifunctional microfluidic cross-structure. [Display omitted] • A bifunctional cross-structure is firstly proposed to realize both droplet generation and detection. • Droplet morphology and distance are considered for flow fluorescence detection. • Influenza A is quantified by an integrated microfluidic chip with proposed structure. • The proposed approach can be applied in other droplet-based quantification scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global terrorism activities and terrorist bombings have been increasing, posing a serious threat to international security and the safety of people's lives and properties. Achieving accurate trace detection of explosives has become a global focus. Fluorescence sensing technology has gained wide application in the field of explosive detection due to its advantages of high sensitivity, low detection limit, ease of operation, low cost, and portability. This article provides an overview of the research progress of fluorescence sensing technology in explosive detection, covering the application of different materials and methods, including aggregation-induced emission (AIE) materials, quantum dots (QDs), organic fluorescent molecules, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and photonic crystal materials (PCs). Furthermore, considering the current challenges and limitations, the future research directions and development trends are discussed. [Display omitted] • A comprehensive review of fluorescence sensing technology in trace explosive detection. • The focus is on the application of emerging technologies for detecting explosives. • It provides a perspective on the development trends of fluorescence technology in explosive detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• 1. Study shows crumb rubber reduces fire-induced spalling in UHPC. • 2. Microstructural analysis reveals crumb rubber's role in UHPC. • 3. Residual compressive strength investigated for UHPC with CR and steel fibre at elevated temperatures. In recent years, the spalling behaviour of ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) under elevated temperature conditions has garnered significant attention from researchers worldwide. As a result, various methods have been proposed to mitigate spalling in UHPC under such conditions, including incorporating polymer and steel fibres. Another approach involves using crumb rubber (CR) as a fine aggregate in concrete, which may eliminate spalling when exposed to high temperatures during a fire. However, a systematic study addressing the behaviour of UHPC incorporating CR exposed to high temperatures needs to be included in the literature. To address this gap, this research investigates the spalling behaviour, microstructure, and mechanical properties of UHPC incorporating CR and steel fibres under high elevated temperatures. The findings indicate that CR can effectively reduce the risk of spalling in UHPC. Additionally, the compressive strength of all the five mixes prepared in this study increased when the temperature in the furnace reached 300 °C but decreased when it went to 600 °C. Finally, microstructure analyses were conducted to understand the mixes' spalling and mechanical behaviours with or without CR. This study introduces a new and excellent way of reusing CR from car tyre waste in green construction. By using CR as a fine aggregate in UHPC, spalling can be mitigated, and waste can be effectively reused, contributing to sustainable development. Overall, this research provides valuable insights into the behaviour of UHPC incorporating CR under high elevated temperatures and paves the way for future studies in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • A hydrogen peroxide fluorescent sensor based on hollow SiO 2 photonic crystals was developed. • This sensor has good anti-interference ability and can be reused. • The method can also potentially detect different concentrations of ethanol solutions. Hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2) is an important oxidant that exists widely in biological systems and the environment, and has been extensively used in medical, environmental, food, and industrial fields. Accurate, rapid, and sensitive detection of H 2 O 2 content is of great significance in the fields of biomedicine, environmental monitoring, food safety, and public safety. In this study, a probe was developed by utilizing Rhodamine 6G (Rh6G), a readily available commercial fluorescent dye, within hollow SiO 2 photonic crystals (HSPCs) to produce an amplified fluorescent signal. Furthermore, I- were incorporated into the system, which can be oxidized to I 2 in the presence of H 2 O 2. The I 3 - produced can react with Rh6G to form a complex that quenches the fluorescence signal, enabling highly efficient detection of H 2 O 2. The method does not require complex organic synthesis or modification of fluorescent groups. Additionally, the sensors exhibit good performance in terms of repeated use and can also potentially detect different concentrations of ethanol solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of net ecosystem productivity (NEP) and carbon emissions (CEs) were revealed. • Grassland ecosystems had a very large carbon sink potential, which could make important contributions to the realization of regional carbon neutrality goals. • The spatiotemporal and geographical weighted regression (GTWR) model was used to clarify the potential mechanism of grassland sink increase. • The sustainable development pattern of "carbon trading-ecological compensation-grassland sink increase" were proposed. Grassland ecosystems are an important part of terrestrial ecosystems. It is of great significance to fully tap the potential of grassland carbon sinks to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality in the region and even worldwide. Previous studies have focused on analyzing the temporal and spatial distributions of grassland carbon sink capacity and lacked a systematic discussion of grassland carbon source/sink management. Taking three grasslands in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China as an example, this study characterized grassland carbon source/sink capacity through net ecosystem productivity (NEP), combined with a soil respiration model, Sen + MK (Mann-Kendall) trend test method and other methods, revealed the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of NEP and carbon emissions (CEs) in the study area from 2000 to 2019, and used spatiotemporal and geographical weighted regression (GTWR) model to clarify the potential mechanism of grassland sink increase. Suggestions for grassland carbon source/sink management are also discussed. The study found that the CEs in the study area from 2000 to 2019 could be roughly divided into three stages: slow growth period (2000–2009), rapid growth period (2009–2011) and stable development period (2011–2019). Although grassland carbon sinks could not completely offset regional CEs, grassland ecosystems had a very large carbon sink potential, which could make important contributions to the realization of regional carbon neutrality goals. Grassland carbon sources/sinks were jointly affected by climate change and human activities, and the degree of impact varied from year to year, with the impact of human activities changing more significantly. On this basis, the study puts forward policy recommendations from four aspects: regional priority, dynamic monitoring and management, control of grazing intensity and implementation of ecological compensation, and it proposed a sustainable development pattern of "carbon trading-ecological compensation-grassland sink increase". The research results have important practical guiding significance for the management of grassland sink increases and regional carbon neutral development strategies in Inner Mongolia under the background of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to reduce wind-caused disasters and reduce the cost of production in summer, the large-span M-shaped greenhouse with superior wind resistance and cooling performance is proposed. This paper carries out a research on the optimization with the V-angle of M-shaped greenhouse, and the wind effect and ventilation performance of the optimized M-shaped greenhouse and ordinary large-span arch greenhouse (ordinary arch greenhouse) are studied and comparatively analyzed. It is obtained that the wind resistance of M-shaped greenhouse is optimal at a V-angle of 95°. For the four cases of relatively large net wind pressure coefficients of opening windward side vent, leeward side vent, side vents and top vents, the maximum net wind pressure coefficients of M-shaped greenhouse are lower than those of ordinary arch greenhouse. M-shaped greenhouse has higher ventilation efficiency and slightly lower temperature than ordinary arch greenhouse. It can be seen that M-shaped greenhouse has excellent wind resistance in both closed and open states, and has good ventilation and cooling effect in summer. It can be widely used in agricultural production as new wind-resistant cooling plastic greenhouses. • Large-span M-shaped greenhouse that is suitable for mechanization is proposed. • The angle of the V-shaped roof of M-shaped greenhouse is optimized. • M-shaped greenhouse has superior wind resistance and ventilation performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bergenia purpurascens is an important medicinal, edible and ornamental plant. It generally grows in high-altitude areas with complex climates. There have been no reports about how B. purpurascens survives under cold stress. Here, the B. purpurascens under low temperature were subjected to transcriptomics analysis to explore the candidate genes and pathways that involved in the cold tolerance of B. purpurascens. Compared with the control treatment, we found 9,600 up-regulated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and 7,055 down-regulated DEGs. A significant number of DEGs were involved in the Ca2+ signaling pathway, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade, plant hormone signaling pathway, and lipid metabolism. A total of 400 transcription factors were found to respond to cold stress, most of which belonged to the MYB and AP2/ERF families. Five novel genes were found to be potential candidate genes involved in the cold tolerance of B. purpurascens. The study provide insights into further investigation of the molecular mechanism of how B. purpurascens survives under cold stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Steam curing parameters (temperature rise rate, sustained temperature time, and sustained temperature) have a great influence on compressive properties of 3D printed concrete. • Anisotropy, a crucial characteristic of 3D printed concrete can be significantly influenced by steam curing. • Machine learning technology shows accurate and reliable performance in predicting compressive strength considering anisotropy and steam curing condition. • Beetle antennae search automatically tunes the hyperparameters of machine learning models. The 3D concrete printing (3DCP) technique piques the curiosity of several researchers and enterprises. However, there are few systematic investigations into how curing conditions influence the mechanical performance of 3DCP. This study aims to investigate the effect of various steam curing conditions (temperature rise rate, retention capacity, and sustained temperature) on the performance properties of 3D printing concrete materials at various ages of curing. A thorough test comprises macroscopic and microscopic analysis was conducted. In addition, the best conditions for steam curing are established for compressive characteristics in different directions. Then the anisotropy of mechanical properties of printed materials are studied under various curing settings. This study has contributed to the theoretical research on the influence of steam curing conditions on printed components. In addition, the experimental results were used to create two machine learning (ML) models and the beetle antennae search (BAS) technique was utilised. According to test data, the model is carried out to achieve the mechanical performance prediction of steam curing concrete. To automatically find optimal hyperparameters of ML models, the BAS algorithm was proposed, providing a solid guarantee for the rapid construction of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automatically extracting water bodies is a significant task in interpreting remote sensing images (RSIs). Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have exhibited excellent performance in processing RSIs, which have been widely used for fine-grained extraction of water bodies. However, it is difficult for the extraction accuracy of CNNs to satisfy the requirements in practice due to the limited receptive field and the gradually reduced spatial size during the encoder stage. In complicated scenarios, in particular, the existing methods perform even worse. To address this problem, a novel boundary-guided semantic context network (BGSNet) is proposed to accurately extract water bodies via leveraging boundary features to guide the integration of semantic context. Firstly, a boundary refinement (BR) module is proposed to preserve sufficient boundary distributions from shallow layer features. In addition, abstract semantic information of deep layers is also captured by a semantic context fusion (SCF) module. Based on the results obtained from the aforementioned modules, a boundary-guided semantic context (BGS) module is devised to aggregate semantic context information along the boundaries, thereby enhancing intra-class consistency of water bodies. Extensive experiments were conducted on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau Lake (QTPL) and the Land-cOVEr Domain Adaptive semantic segmentation (LoveDA) datasets. The results demonstrate that the proposed BGSNet outperforms the mainstream approaches in terms of OA, MIoU, F1-score, and kappa. Specifically, BGSNet achieves an OA of 98.97% on the QTPL dataset and 95.70% on the LoveDA dataset. Additionally, an ablation study was conducted to validate the efficacy of the proposed modules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) – small and portable devices designed to harvest electricity from mechanical vibrations and friction – have matured from a niche theme of electrical engineering research into multidisciplinary research encompassing materials science, physics, and chemistry. Recent advances in both the fundamental understanding and performances of TENGs have been made possible by surface chemistry, electrochemistry, and theoretical chemistry research entering this active and promising field. This short review focuses on the recent developments of direct-current (DC) TENGs, where sliding friction or repetitive contact–separation cycles between the surface of polymers, metals, chemically modified semiconductors, and more recently even by the simple contact of surfaces with water solutions, can output DC suitable to power electronic devices without the need of additional rectification. We critically analyze the role of surface chemistry toward maximizing DC TENG outputs and device longevity. The major current hypotheses about their working mechanism(s) are also discussed. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Under natural ventilation, the wind speed has the least impact on the microenvironment in the greenhouse. • Side vent opening and crop height significantly affect the microenvironment in the greenhouse, and they have the best matching relationship. • When only the inter valley vent is opened, the HREs are the smallest and close under various crop height and wind speed. • When the side vent openings are the same, the height of the horizontal layer of the lowest temperature increases with the increase of crop height. Multi-span arched plastic greenhouse is an important horticultural facilities structure. The main problem to be faced is ventilation and cooling in summer. Therefore, 3-span arched plastic greenhouse with better adjustable performance were used as a research object. The effects of vent opening, wind speed and crop height on the microenvironment under natural ventilation were studied by means of in-situ observation and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. By analyzing the space-time evolution of microenvironment and ventilation efficiency in the greenhouse, this paper aims to explore the change process of microenvironment and the reasonable matching relationship between various factors. The results show that side vent opening and crop height significantly affect the microenvironment in the greenhouse, and they have the optimum matching relationship. When the crop height is 1.0 m and the wind speeds are 0 m/s, 1.0 m/s and 2.0 m/s respectively in the dynamic stability stage, the temperatures of point Q 2 under the condition that the side vent opening is 0.8 m are 3.00 °C, 1.49 °C and 0.51 °C lower than temperatures under the condition that only the inter valley vent is opened. When the crop height is 1.8 m and the wind speed is 0 m/s, the difference of temperature of point Q 3 is 3.50 °C, 0.97 °C and 2.15 °C respectively. The larger the opening of the side vent, the better the ventilation and cooling effect. Compared with the influence of the size of the side vent opening on the microclimate in the greenhouse, the influence of wind speed on it is weak. When side and inter valley vent are opened at the same time, the horizontal layer height of the lowest temperature at the crop height of 1.0 m is lower than that of 1.8 m. The influence of side vent opening on heat removal efficiencies (HREs) takes precedence over the influence of wind speed. When only the inter valley vent is opened, the HREs are the smallest and close at various crop heights and wind speeds. These results provided a control strategy with lower energy consumption and higher efficiency for 3-span arched greenhouses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the application of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing in grassland ecosystem monitoring has increased, and the application directions have diversified. However, there have been few research reviews specifically for grassland ecosystems at present. Therefore, it is necessary to systematically and comprehensively summarize the application of UAV remote sensing in grassland ecosystem monitoring. In this paper, we first analyzed the application trend of UAV remote sensing in grassland ecosystem monitoring and introduced common UAV platforms and remote sensing sensors. Then, the application scenarios of UAV remote sensing in grassland ecosystem monitoring were reviewed from five aspects: grassland vegetation monitoring, grassland animal surveys, soil physical and chemical monitoring, grassland degradation monitoring and environmental disturbance monitoring. Finally, the current limitations and future development directions were summarized. The results will be helpful to improve the understanding of the application scenarios of UAV remote sensing in grassland ecosystem monitoring and to provide a scientific reference for ecological remote sensing research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Establish a complete damage solution equation and a creep model after damage. • Determined the damage threshold of the early cement stone specimens. • The damage creep instability mode is divided into energy storage and dissipative energy. • The creep failure strength shows a rapid increase first and then a stable trend with the decrease of the damage. The cement used in roadway is in the state of long-term compression, and its creep characteristics have been extensively studied. However, the cement paste will be affected by stress after construction and cause early damage, and the creep behavior after damage has not been involved. To solve this problem, 5 groups of 10 cement stone specimens were prepared for early damage and post-damage creep tests. The results show that the damage amount at each stage can be calculated by establishing a complete damage solving equation, and the creep behavior after damage can be effectively characterized by the modified Nishihara model after introducing damage factors. With the decrease of the stress ratio (100% ~ 60%), the axial strain, transverse strain, Poisson's ratio and the damage amount of the cement stone specimen decrease, while the elastic modulus increases. The 80% stress ratio (the damage amount is 0.50) of early cement stone specimen is the damage threshold value, and the effect of early damage below this value on later creep property is far less than that of the damage above the threshold value. The internal cracks of the specimen under the acoustic emission observation increase with the increase of the damage amount from compaction to generation of fine cracks and then gradually penetrate to failure. With the decrease of damage amount, the creep failure strength of cement stone specimen showed a trend of rapid increase at first and then stable, while the primary damage strain and primary creep strain showed a trend of rapid decrease at first and then slow decrease, both of which changed at 0.50 damage amount. The instability modes of cement stone specimens are divided into energy storage instability and dissipative energy instability. The stress concentration of high and low damage specimens occurs at large and small cracks respectively in the creep stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The one‐stage detectors achieve a good trade‐off between performance and latency, owing to the plain architecture and divergent learning mechanism for classification and localization. However, the two sub‐tasks require features with various inherency with which to generate inconsistent detections, fettering detectors. In this study, the misalignment is deeply analyzed via kernel density estimation (KDE) for the first time. Moreover, to address the misalignment, a plug‐and‐play detection head, named Diff‐Head, is devised and embedded in one‐stage detectors. Concretely, the authors merge parallel branches into a semi‐parallel structure, establishing the correlation between classification and regression. In the regression branch, a feature difference module (FDM) gets rid of the features that favour classification by subtracting salient object features from the original feature map, and position encoding (PE) modules enhance the absolute position information. The flexibility and efficiency of the detection head are retained. Experiments on Pascal visual object classes (VOC) and MS COCO demonstrate that Diff‐Head is effective and achieves competitive performance with state‐of‐the‐art detectors. Meanwhile, the amount of parameters is reduced at least 30% and 83.0% average precision (AP) is achieved on Pascal VOC. The analyses of consistency and error show that Diff‐Head has better localization and the capability of mitigating the misalignment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matching the supply and demand of related ecosystem services can be an effective way to realize long-term sustainable management of the food-energy-water nexus (FEW Nexus) in drylands. However, few studies have focused on the matching of supply and demand for ecosystem services associated with advancing the sustainability of FEW-Nexus, there is limited research in this domain, which lacks systematic and quantitative analysis of the relationship between them and FEW Nexus sustainability. Here, this research takes the West Liaohe River Basin in the arid region of China as a case study. Based on a localized FEW Nexus sustainability evaluation index system, the FEW Nexus sustainability and the supply-demand matching characteristics of the corresponding ecosystem services in the West Liaohe River Basin from 2005 to 2015 were assessed. The relationship between them was analyzed quantitatively through the methods of coupling coordination degree and geographical detector. The results showed a synergistic improvement in both FEW Nexus sustainability and the supply-demand situation of combined ecosystem services. The supply of food production and water yield were able to meet their demands adequately from 2005 to 2015, with a strengthening surplus, leading to an overall surplus and gradual improvement in the integrated ecosystem services. This surplus synergistically promoted the process of FEW Nexus sustainability. The results of the geographical detector indicate that the supply-demand ratio of carbon sequestration was the main factor influencing FEW Nexus sustainability. Areas with higher FEW Nexus sustainability tended to have larger deficits in carbon sequestration, which was more evident in areas with high levels of urbanization. Therefore, the key to enhancing FEW Nexus sustainability in the basin is to balance the supply of and demand for carbon sequestration services. Overall, the present study not only provides a basis for strengthening the management of the supply-demand of ecosystem services associated with FEW to achieve regional sustainable development, but also offers insights into how the growing demand for the FEW Nexus is exerting pressure on the balance between supply and demand of related ecosystem services. • A localized FEW Nexus framework assessed sustainability in dryland basins. • The supply-demand balance affects the Nexus to a greater extent than the supply. • Higher FEW Nexus sustainability links to more carbon deficits in urbanized areas. • Management of carbon sequestration is critical to the FEW Nexus sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although wind power contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, it also has significant impacts on the local climate and vegetation. Exploring these impacts is important for the sustainable development of wind power. Therefore, based on moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) data and other remote sensing data from 2003 to 2022, this paper investigated the impacts of 101 grassland wind farms (WFs) in Inner Mongolia on land-atmosphere water and heat exchange, vegetation growth, ecosystem primary productivity, and vegetation structural characteristics during the growing season and revealed the spatial distribution patterns of the impacts of WFs as well as differences between different types of grasslands. The results indicated that WFs increased the nighttime land surface temperature (LST), decreased evapotranspiration (ET), inhibited vegetation growth, decreased gross primary productivity (GPP), and reduced the leaf area index (LAI) in growing season grasslands. This effect varied across different types of grasslands and showed significant complexity. In terms of land-atmosphere water and heat exchange, nighttime LST increases and ET decreases were significant in the typical steppe but not in the meadow steppe. In terms of vegetation change, meadow steppe had the most inhibited vegetation growth and the greatest reduction in GPP. In terms of the impact range, WFs on typical steppe and meadow steppe have opposite effects on vegetation growth and ecosystem primary productivity inside and outside of them, i.e., they inhibit vegetation growth and reduce GPP inside the WF areas but promote vegetation growth and increase GPP outside the WF areas. Compared with previous studies, this study analyzed multiple climate and vegetation indicators based on many WF samples, which reduced the uncertainty associated with a single sample and provided more comprehensive and comparable observations of different types of grasslands. These findings can help to balance the relationship between wind power development and ecological protection. • Wind farms significantly impacted the grassland climate and vegetation. • The impact of wind farms varies across different types of grasslands. • Wind farms may have opposite effects on vegetation inside and outside them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Head-up display systems with ultra-simplified structure and low cost are designed and fabricated. • Head-up display system uses a freeform holographic optical element as the optical combiner (OC). • Head-up display system comprises only the optical combiner (OC) and the picture generating unit (PGU). • Feasible display performance and optical see-through viewing are achieved. • The proposed head-up display systems can be applicable for the fields of vehicle, exhibition, entertainment, etc. Head-up display (HUD) systems play an important role in the fields of navigation prompts in aircraft/vehicle, entertainment display, exhibition, etc., In this paper, we propose the design and fabrication of novel ultra-simplified and low-cost HUD systems that only comprise the picture generating unit (PGU) and the optical combiner (OC), where OC is a holographic optical element (HOE) fabricated using freeform wave. OC possesses an equivalent degrees of design freedom compared with optical freeform surface, and it simultaneously performs the optical functions of correcting the off-axis system aberrations and combining the see-through beams. Based on the proposed structure, an off-axis reflective HUD system prototype is designed and fabricated. In addition, a HUD system with a simplified structure applied for the vehicle fields is designed. The proposed ultra-simplified system structure opens a new gateway for developing the next generation HUD systems as well as other AR displays systems in the fields of industry, entertainment, exhibition, vehicle, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study the influence of cyclic disturbance stress on the mechanical behavior of coal during mining, a gas containing coal fluid-solid coupling servo seepage experimental system was used to conduct experimental research on the acoustic emission (AE) characteristics of gas containing coal under two stress paths of graded cyclic loading and unloading. The AE characteristics of coal damage and failure processes under different cyclic stress paths were analyzed. The research results indicate that: (1) The overall characteristics of AE signals for both graded cyclic loading and unloading paths are basically the same. With increasing of the amount of graded cyclic loading or unloading, the AE count reaches its maximum value when reaching failure, and the cumulative ringing calculation of AE increases exponentially. (2) The AE signals under the graded cyclic loading or unloading path exhibit obvious zoning characteristics. In the low and medium stress regions, the AE signal basically satisfies the Kaiser effect, while reaching the high stress region before failure, the AE signal exhibits a significant Felicity effect. (3) The concentration coefficient of AE and the intensity coefficient of the Kaiser effect have been newly defined. They are used to quantitatively characterize the extent of the Kaiser effect of AEs under graded cyclic stress. It was found that as the variation of graded cyclic stress increases, the concentration coefficient and Kaiser effect intensity coefficient both show a decreasing trend. (4) Combining the AF and RA values of AE, it was found that the coal failure signals of the two stress paths were basically similar, that is, the overall failure was mainly tensile failure, and the signals of cyclic unloading tensile failure were significantly more than those of cyclic loading. The AE signal characteristics studied in this article are of great significance for predicting coal power disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use and land cover (LULC) contribute to both carbon storage and carbon emissions. Therefore, regulating the LULC is an important means of achieving carbon neutrality under global environmental change. Here, the West Liaohe River Basin, a semiarid watershed, was taken as a case study. Based on the assessment of the carbon storage and emissions induced by LULC from 2000–2020, we set up three different coupled shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) and representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios (SSP119, SSP245, and SSP585), from 2030–2060, to optimize the LULC. Then, the LULC patterns under each scenario were simulated using the patch-generating land use simulation (PLUS) model, and the corresponding changes in carbon storage and emissions were compared and analyzed. It was found that, since 2000, with the expansion of forest, cropland, and construction land, as well as the degradation of grassland, the carbon storage and emissions induced by LULC have significantly increased, but the increase in storage was lower than that of emissions. The scenario simulations revealed that, when we optimize the LULC, mainly including the protection and expansion of ecological land such as forest and grassland in the western and southern edges of the basin, as well as the control and management of cropland land and construction land in the northeast and central parts of the basin, there will be a significant increase in the carbon storage and a significant reduction in carbon emissions from 2030–2060. This indicates that zone-based management measures with rational LULC regulation can contribute to the achievement of carbon neutrality in the study area. Supported by the results of this study, a direct decision-making basis for land use policy regulation to promote regional sustainable development can be undertaken in the basin. This study also provides a reference for low-carbon development in other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel broad wavelength-shifted thermoresponsive sensors were fabricated by introducing ferrocene groups into polymeric photonic crystals. They are more suitable thermosensors due to their advantages, such as simple preparation, broad wavelength shifts (up to 162 nm), visible color change, and strong anti-interference ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-temperature processing and cooling time significantly affect the rock's physical and mechanical properties, affecting the safety and reliability of high-temperature rock mechanics. Accordingly, this study conducted uniaxial compression tests on the red sandstone specimens after the processing at different temperatures (25–800 °C) and for additional cooling times. It analyzed the effects of the processing temperature and the cooling time on the rock's physical parameters. Moreover, we investigated the relations of the specimen's strength, deformation, and elastic modulus in different samples under different high-temperature processing and cooling periods and examined the sample failure modes drawing the following conclusions based on the present compression test results. First was the effect of high-temperature processing and cooling on the specimen divided into three phases: high-temperature damage, initial cooling, and water absorption metamorphism subjecting the specimen's physical properties to the combined effects of the fracture development degree, water evaporation, adsorption, and the change of the mineral structural components. Secondly, the uniaxial compressive strength and the elastic modulus showed unimodal distribution patterns concerning the coupling action of the processing temperature and the cooling time, while the peak strain almost followed spatial curved surface distribution. Thirdly, the processing temperature imposed a much more significant effect than the cooling time. Finally, the failure mode showed brittle characteristics. After the cooling for three days, the specimen transited from splitting failure to single-level shear failure in terms of failure mode and finally underwent X-shaped conjugate shear collapse. After the processing at 600 °C, the specimen gradually changed from shear to splitting failure with the increased cooling time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of the present study is to examine differences in cognitive, psychomotor, and social-emotional development scores between only children and children with siblings aged 6–30 months in rural China using data of 1802 children across 351 villages in 174 townships, disaggregating according to child gender. The results indicate that having a sibling is negatively associated with cognitive, psychomotor, and socioemotional development for girls, but not for boys. Despite this, girls appear to be developmentally advantaged compared to boys, even when they have a sibling. Our results, however, are not conclusive regarding why only-girls are affected while boys are not affected by the existence of siblings. Parenting behaviours (such as playing with children, reading to children, reading to children with books, and singing to children), appear to be unrelated to the developmental differences between only-girls and girls with siblings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Multi-factor modeling can effectively improve the accuracy of AGB estimation. • The accuracy and stability of AGB estimation can be improved with BP-ANN model. • The simulation capability of BP-ANN model can be improved by means of multiple modeling and averaging. • The spatial and temporal distribution of grassland AGB is closely related to precipitation. Aboveground biomass (AGB) is a fundamental parameter used in grassland-related research, for which remote sensing has become an effective inversion technology on a regional level. Using a typical steppe in Inner Mongolia, China as an example, this study constructed a single-factor parametric model, a multifactor parametric model, and a multifactor nonparametric model to estimate the grassland AGB from actual field measurement data. We compared the accuracy and stability of the various models using a ten-fold cross-validation method and established a remote-sensing inversion model for grassland AGB. On this basis, we simulated the grassland AGB from 2015 to 2019 in the study area, analyzed its spatial–temporal distribution characteristics, and discussed the effects of these climatic factors. The research results showed that the accuracy and stability of the various models ranked as follows: back-propagation artificial neural network (BP-ANN) inversion model > multifactor parametric model > single-factor parametric model. The simulation capability of the BP-ANN inversion model for grassland AGB was effectively improved by averaging the repeated modeling results. The grassland AGB of the study area from 2015 through 2019 showed a spatial distribution of gradual increase from the northwest to the southeast and an inter-annual trend of increasing over time. The spatial and temporal distribution characteristics were closely related to the amount of precipitation. The research results can provide a direct reference for remote-sensing monitoring of grassland AGB and provide accurate spatial data as well as a scientific basis for sustained development of regional grassland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil wind erosion is an important ecological environmental problem that is widespread in arid and semi-arid regions. Currently, related studies are mainly focused on spatiotemporal characteristics or analysis of effector mechanisms, and they do not facilitate direct servicing of management decisions. In this paper, we used the Xilingol typical steppe in Inner Mongolia, China, as a study site to develop a decision framework for a comprehensive understanding of soil wind erosion and to promote sustainable management of steppes. In this study, we used the Revised Wind Erosion Equation model to simulate soil wind erosion. We combined this model with linear trend analysis to evaluate the ecological effects of soil wind erosion and wind erosion intensity, and delineated the gravity center migration path. We used the constraint line method to reveal the mechanisms by which climatic factors affected soil wind erosion, achieved the spatial visualization of wind-breaking and sand-fixing service flow, and proposed decision-based regional sustainable development suggestions. The results showed that long-term soil wind erosion will lead to soil coarsening and loss of soil nutrients. Soil wind erosion in the study site showed worsening trends and risks, and as such, ecological environment conservation and management are urgently required. The study framework promotes a clear understanding of the complex relationship of human–earth systems. The study results will aid in the ecological remediation of steppe landscapes and the prevention of desertification and will provide a foundation for win–win management of ecological conservation and economic development in arid and semi-arid regions. • A decision-oriented management framework was developed from the perspective of soil wind erosion prevention and control. • Long-term soil wind erosion will lead to soil coarsening and loss of soil nutrients. • The constraint line method can help to reveal the complex effects of meteorological factors on soil wind erosion. • The study achieved spatial visualization of wind-breaking and sand-fixing service flow in grassland ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the important economic role played by local governments in the development of industries in China, this paper incorporates the competition behaviors of local governments into the analytical framework of environmental externalities of industrial agglomeration; accordingly, it theoretically explores the environmental externalities that may arise from industrial agglomeration induced by local governments' competition. On the basis of panel data covering 282 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2007 to 2016, this paper uses spatial econometric methods to test the impact of the interaction between industrial agglomeration and local governments' competition on environmental pollution and spatial spillover effects. The empirical test results show that, compared with simple industrial agglomeration, the combination of industrial agglomeration and local governments' competition is the key factor explaining the current changes in the environmental pollution level and that the interaction between industrial agglomeration mode and local government competitive behaviors aggravates environmental pollution. Among them, the interaction between specialized agglomeration and local governments' tax competition exerts negative externalities on the environment through the overcrowding effect, while the interaction between diversified agglomeration and local governments' investment competition has negative externalities on the environment through the centralized emission effect. Both have significant spatial spillover effects. Adjacent regions will form a larger-scale overcrowding effect and concentrated emission effect under the joint influence of the "race to the bottom" competitive strategy interaction and related industries. Lastly, based on our research conclusion, this paper proposes some policy suggestions to optimize local governments' competitive behaviors and industrial agglomeration and other market forces to jointly control environmental pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The carbon pools demonstrated different degrees of "clustering" characteristic. • Prominent formation mechanisms were observed in the soil, litter, and root carbon pools. • Climate factors demonstrated varying degrees of constraint effects on the carbon pool. The grassland ecosystems, which are the most widely distributed terrestrial ecosystems, play an important role in regional climate change and the global carbon cycle. While researchers worldwide have spent much effort on quantitatively evaluating organic carbon at the regional scale, few studies have examined organic carbon pools at different levels, or their driving factors. To better facilitate a deeper understanding of carbon pool mechanisms, comprehensive understanding and comparative analysis among carbon pools is necessary. In this study, the Xilingol Typical Steppe Region of Inner Mongolia was used as a case study to quantitatively model vegetation, litter, soil, and ecosystem carbon pools for the 2011–2018 period. The improved Terrestrial Ecosystem Regional (TECO-R) model was used to perform carbon stock simulations, which was modified and calibrated for local application. The organic carbon pools at different levels were compared and analyzed in terms of their spatial distribution, inter-annual variation, and climate-driving factors. The results showed that the modified TECO-R model accurately simulated carbon storage on the whole. From 2011 to 2018 year, the various organic carbon pools increased overall and were characterized by different degrees of clustering in their spatial distribution, inter-annual variation, and climate-driving factors. Clear formation mechanisms were observed in the soil, litter, and root carbon pools. As the soil depth increased, the carbon stock of the root carbon pool and the soil carbon pool decreased. Climate factors exerted different degrees of constraints on each carbon pool. These findings promote understanding of the compositional differences in grassland carbon pools and the driving mechanism for these carbon pools, which, taken together, can help shape the policy for carbon sink management in grasslands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Monitoring grassland degradation from the perspective of the vegetation species composition can make up for the shortcomings of conventional methods. • The grassland degradation monitoring standards were established in the study based on the measured data. • The different typical plants responded differently for spectral bands, which provide the theoretical basis for species identification and grassland degradation evaluation. Grassland degradation is an important research topic on a global scale, since it can severely restrict the development of animal husbandry and threaten ecological security. The proper monitoring of regional grassland degradation is the basis for strengthening grassland protection and restoration, as well as improving grassland ecology. In this study, the standards for monitoring grassland degradation at the regional level were established based on the field data measured in the study area and the data of a grazing-controlled experimental plot. We extracted the spectral characteristic parameters and carried out the spectral dimensionality reduction and accuracy evaluation using principal component analysis (PCA) and the multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPNN). Based on the EO-1 Hyperion images, multiple endmember spectral mixture analysis (MESMA) and the fully constrained least squares method pixel un-mixing (FCLS) were used to identify typical vegetation species and assess the degree of grassland degradation at the regional level per the established grassland degradation monitoring standards. This new method of monitoring grassland degradation from the perspective of the vegetation species composition not only makes grassland degradation monitoring more accurate, but also provides a reference for relevant studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]