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Groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) refer to ecosystems that require access partially or completely to groundwater to maintain their ecological structure and functions, provisioning very important services for the health of land, water, and coastal ecosystems. However, regional identification of GDEs is still difficult in areas affected by climate change 10 and extensive groundwater extraction. To address this issue, taking the Langxi River Basin (LRB), one of the lower tributaries of the Yellow River in North China, as an example, we propose a four-diagnostic criteria framework for identifying the GDEs based on remote sensing, GIS data dredging and hydrogeological surveys. Firstly, the potential GDEs distributions are preliminarily delineated by the topographic features and the differences of vegetation water situation, soil moisture in the end of the dry and wet seasons. On this basis, according to the given GDEs identification criteria, three main 15 types of GDEs in the basin including the stream-type GDEs (S-GDEs), vegetation-type GDEs (V-GDEs) and karst aquifertype GDEs (K-GDEs) are further determined by comparing the relationship between groundwater table and riverbed elevation, vegetation root development depth, and though surveys of karst springs and aquifers. And then the GDEs are mapped using the spatial kernel density function which can represent the characteristics of spatial aggregation distribution. Results show that the potential GDEs are mainly distributed in plain areas and a small part in hilly areas, reflecting the 20 moisture distribution status of waters, vegetation and wetlands in the basin that possibly receive groundwater recharge, however, the true GDEs are concentrated in the riverine and riparian zone, the vegetation-related wetland and the scattered karst spring surroundings which groundwater directly moves toward and into. To verify the reliability of GDEs distributions, ecohydrological signal analysis were also performed in this paper. The analysis of river hydrological process curve and karst spring hydrograph in Shuyuan section showed that the proportion of base flow to river flow is about 54.15% and S-GDEs 25 still receive spring water recharge even in the extremely dry season. And the analysis of hydrochemical sampling from the karst aquifer, Quaternary aquifer, spring water and surface reservoir water reveals that GDEs are also relished by groundwater. More important, we also found a distinctive ecohydrological signal of GDEs is the presence of millimetersized groundwater fauna living in the different types of GDEs. Finally, the validity of the method proposed in the study for identification and mapping of the GDEs is also discussed. It still has some room for improvement if the water, sediments and 30 biotic connectivities between groundwater and GDEs are analyzed by using isotopes and DNA technology under the recommended four-diagnostic criteria framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present study was to perform the accurate prognosis of different molecular types breast cancer (BC) by using the partitioning calculation method of the Ki-67 index. Partitioning calculation was used to judge the Ki-67 index and the molecular type was classified according to the 2019 Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology guidelines in 199 cases of BC. The association between the Ki-67 index and overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS) and molecular types was analyzed using the Chi-squared test. Survival analysis was performed using the Kaplan-Meier method with statistical SPSS 18.0 software. The results revealed that the 5-year survival rate of patients with BC was 18.60% (8/43), the 6-year survival rate was 38.24% (26/68), while the 10-year survival rate of patients with BC was 73.08% (133/182); the results indicated that almost 80% patients succumbed during the 5 years following diagnosis. Marked differences were found between the OS of patients with BC and the Ki-67 index (between 50 to 54%) (χ2=4.83, P=0.028; χ2=4.60, P=0.032 respectively). All 14 cases of luminal A subtype BC with a Ki-67 index ≤4% survived at the end of follow-up time (69-156 months). At the same time, there was a marked difference between two groups of patients with overexpression HER-2 while using 50% as a cut-off point of Ki-67 (χ2=5.54, P=0.019). On the whole, the present study demonstrates that the partitioning calculation of the Ki-67 index can be used to judge the prognosis of patients with BC accurately. The prognosis of patients with different molecular subtypes of BC may be associated with the different Ki-67 index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of renewable energy in desalination is becoming increasingly attractive. A solar-wind powered seawater desalination system with a design capacity of 5 m3/d demonstration project was developed and tested in Weihai, China. A 26 kW photovoltaic array was used as the main driving source, and a 2.5 kW wind generators as the supplementary source. The desalination unit used was a two-stage reverse osmosis (RO) unit. The system was operated in an automatic mode, showing good suitability to unsteady solar and wind energy, during which the RO unit ran for 5 h/d averagely, showing reliable performance in the automatic off-and-on operation mode. The daily average water production was 5 m3/d. The comprehensive analysis shows that the power consumption of the seawater desalination equipment is 10 kWh/m3, and the water production cost of the integrated unit is 2.29 dollars/m3, with the ways to lower them discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent developments in word-based stream ciphers present the study on multisequences. The joint linear complexity and k-error joint linear complexity are fundamental concepts for the assessment of multisequences. The k-error joint linear complexity spectrum contains all the information about how the joint linear complexity of a multisequence decreases as the number k of allowed bit changes increases. In this paper, we present an efficient algorithm by which the k-error joint linear complexity spectrum for a t-fold pn periodic binary multisequence can be entirely determined usingO(tpn log p) bit operations, where p is an odd prime, 2 is a primitive root modulo p2 and n is a positive integer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]