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The present study examined the usage of deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) for the classification, segmentation, and detection of the images of surface defects in heritage buildings. A survey was conducted on the building surface defects in Gulang Island (a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site), which were subsequently classified into six categories according to relevant standards. A Swin Transformer- and YOLOv5-based model was built for the automated detection of surface defects. Experimental results suggested that the proposed model was 99.2% accurate at classifying plant penetration and achieved a mean intersection-over-union (mIoU) of over 92% in relation to moss, cracking, alkalization, staining, and deterioration, outperforming CNN-based semantic segmentation networks such as FCN, PSPNet, and DeepLabv3plus. The Swin Transformer-based approach for the segmentation of building surface defect images achieved the highest accuracy regardless of the evaluation metric (with an mIoU of 90.96% and an mAcc of 95.78%), when contrasted to mainstream DCNNs such as SegFormer, PSPNet, and DANet.

Most forest soils contain substantial amounts of gravel. However, unlike the more widely known root resource uptake behaviors which respond to resource patches in substrate without gravels, how roots respond to substrate containing different gravel levels is poorly understood. We grew roots in substrates with five gravel levels (0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40% of volume) in a subtropical Schima superba Gardn. et Champ plantation, determined fine root dynamics and turnover rate with minirhizotrons, measured fine root morphological, architectural, mycorrhizal colonization, chemistry, and mass allocation. The presence of gravel in the substrate delayed the timing of peak root growth. In the substrate with higher gravel content, plants produced more in roots in autumn, but there were fewer roots in summer and the roots tended to exhibit lower fine root turnover rate and mycorrhizal colonization, but higher root biomass allocation. The higher root biomass in the substrate with higher gravel content was associated with higher root carbon/nitrogen ratio. Our findings emphasize the complexity of root resource uptake behavior in response to gravel content and suggest that incorporating substrate gravel content into root studies may help to improve the prediction of patch exploitation and nutrient acquisition in stony soils. Key words: heterogeneous patches, root phenology, root morphology, root architecture, mycorrhizal colonization. La plupart des sols forestiers contiennent des quantites substantielles de gravier. Cependant, contrairement aux comportements plus largement connus concernant le prelevement des ressources par les racines qui reagissent a des ilots riches en ressources dans un substrat exempt de gravier, la facon dont les racines reagissent a un substrat qui contient differentes quantites de gravier est mal connue. Nous avons fait croitre les racines dans des substrats contenant differentes proportions (cinq) de gravier (0%, 10%, 20%, 30% et 40% du volume) dans une plantation subtropicale de Schima superba Gardn. et Champ; determine la dynamique et le taux de renouvellement des racines fines a l'aide de minirhizotrons; mesure la morphologie, l'architecture, la colonisation mycorhizienne et les caracteristiques chimiques des racines fines ainsi que la repartition de la biomasse. La presence de gravier dans le substrat a retarde le moment ou la croissance des racines a atteint son niveau maximum. Dans le substrat contenant le plus de gravier, la plus forte croissance est survenue dans les racines a l'automne. Par contre les racines etaient moins abondantes durant l'ete et le taux de renouvellement ainsi que la colonisation mycorhizienne des racines fines avaient tendance a etre plus faibles, mais l'allocation de biomasse racinaire etait plus prononcee. La biomasse racinaire plus elevee dans le substrat contenant le plus de gravier etait associee a un rapport carbone:azote plus eleve dans les racines. Nos resultats font ressortir la complexite du comportement relie au prelevement des ressources par les racines en reaction a la teneur en gravier et indiquent que l'incorporation de la teneur en gravier du substrat dans les etudes portant sur les racines pourrait contribuer a ameliorer la prediction de l'exploitation des ilots riches en ressources et l'acquisition des elements nutritifs dans les sols pierreux. [Traduit par la Redaction] Mots-cles : ilots heterogenes, phenologie racinaire, morphologie racinaire, architecture racinaire, colonisation mycorhizienne., 1. Introduction Resources in soil are heterogeneously distributed. Understanding fine root resource uptake strategies in heterogeneous patches is of primary importance for predicting plant growth and adaptation to changing environments [...]

The book "Obesity in the news: Language and Representation in the Press" by Brookes and Baker provides a linguistic perspective on media representations of obesity. The authors analyze a large dataset of obesity news articles and readers' comments from 2008 to 2017. They examine discursive patterns, shifts over time, and differences between different types of newspapers. The book also explores the stigmatization of people with obesity, representations of weight loss, gendered identities, social class, and reader comments. Overall, the book offers valuable insights into press representations of obesity and provides recommendations for journalists and readers. [Extracted from the article]

Fluid mechanics is a fundamental course in many disciplines such as civil engineering and hydraulic engineering, with broad applicability and practical significance in engineering. However, the abstractness and multiplicity of its basic concepts hinders students' first-hand experience during traditional classroom learning, and the time and space limitation of its offline experiment often results in unsatisfying teaching effectiveness. To address these challenges, a set of virtual simulation experiment system is developed for the course of fluid mechanics, along with an external support system to maximize its performance. Evaluation based on curriculum objective achievement shows that this experimental system has significantly improved the teaching effectiveness for the course of fluid mechanics. It promotes students' independent learning skills and their ability utilizing fluid mechanics knowledge to understand, simplify and solve practical engineering problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sirtuin 6 (SIRT6) plays a critical role in the progression and development of gastrointestinal cancers. However, the association between SIRT6 expression and clinicopathological parameters and prognosis in gastrointestinal cancer patients remains inconclusive. Consequently, we conducted this meta-analysis to evaluate the importance of SIRT6 expression in various types of gastrointestinal cancers. PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science databases were systematically searched to screen the relevant literature. The reported or estimated hazard ratio (HR) and odds ratio (OR) and their corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) were pooled to assess the strength of the association. Nine studies involving 867 patients were included in the meta-analysis. Overall analysis showed that high SIRT6 expression was related to better overall survival in gastrointestinal cancers (HR = 0.62, 95% CI = 0.47–0.82). High SIRT6 expression was also related to a favorable tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage (OR = 0.44, 95% CI = 0.28–0.70) among gastrointestinal cancer patients. Our meta-analysis revealed that high SIRT6 expression might be a potential biomarker predicting better prognosis in gastrointestinal cancers, which may offer options for gastrointestinal cancer treatment.

Plants allocate a substantial amount of C belowground for root exudates and for the construction and adjustment of root morphological and architectural traits. What relationships exist between root exudates and other root traits and these relationships change with growing season, however, remain unclear. We quantified the root exudation rate and root morphological traits, including total root length (RL), total root surface area (RS), root diameter (RD), specific root length (SRL), specific root area (SRA) and root tissue density (RTD), and architectural traits, such as branching intensity (BI), and investigated their associations during the rapidly growing season (April and August) and the slowly growing season (December) of three common native tree species, Liquidambar formosana , Michelia maudiae and Schima superba , in subtropical China. We found that the linkages of RD, SRL, SRA, RTD and BI did not change with the growing season, reflecting their highly conservative relationships. The root exudation rate varied significantly with growing season (P  < 0.05) and produced various associations with other root traits at different growing seasons. During the rapidly growing season (i.e. April), the exudation rate was the highest and was positively correlated with RL. The exudation rate was the lowest during the slowly growing season (i.e. December) and was negatively associated with RL, RS and RTD. Our findings demonstrate the seasonality of the linkages of root exudation rate with other root traits, which highlights the highly plastic and complex associations of belowground root traits. These findings help to deepen our understanding of plant nutrient acquisition strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a Litz winding numerical-simulation model considering the transposition effect, and uses the transient-plane-source method to verify the numerical-simulation method. In addition, numerical methods were adopted to further investigate the impact of filling rate and epoxy-resin type, and their combined effects, on thermal conductivity. To facilitate engineering design, the discrete data points were fitted using the least square method to obtain a straightforward and application-friendly polynomial empirical formula. On this basis, the GA-BP neural network was used to analyze the data in order to seek out more accurate prediction results for the entire data set. As a result, compared with the least square method, the error between the prediction result and the target value in the x direction was reduced by 87.04%, and the error in the z direction was reduced by 84.97%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Timely and accurate acquisition of crop planting areas and spatial distribution are deemed essential for grasping food configurations and guiding agricultural production. Despite the increasing research on crop mapping and changes with the development of remote sensing technology, most studies have focused on large-scale regions, with limited research being conducted in fragmented and ecologically vulnerable valley areas. To this end, this study utilized Landsat ETM+/OLI images as the data source to extract additional features, including vegetation index, terrain, and texture. We employed the Random Forest Recursive Feature Elimination (RF_RFE) algorithm for feature selection and evaluated the effectiveness of three machine learning algorithms—Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), and Rotation Forest (ROF)—for crop extraction. Then, based on the optimal classifiers, the main crops in the Huangshui basin for the years of 2002, 2014, and 2022 were extracted. Finally, the transfer matrix, the gravity center model, and the Standard Deviation Ellipse (SDE) model were used to analyze the spatio—temporal changes of crops over the past 20 years in the Huangshui basin. The results showed that the spectral, vegetation index, and terrain features played a crucial role in crop extraction. Comparing the performance of the classifiers, the ROF algorithm displayed superior effectiveness in crop identification. The overall accuracy of crop extraction was above 86.97%, and the kappa coefficient was above 0.824. Notably, between 2002 and 2022, significant shifts in crop distribution within the Huangshui basin were observed. The highland barley experienced a net increase in planting area at a rate of 8.34 km2/year, while the spring wheat and oilseed rape demonstrated net decreases at rates of 16.02 km2/year and 14.28 km2/year, respectively. Furthermore, the study revealed that highland barley exhibited the most substantial movement, primarily expanding towards the southeast direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Site preparation is a common practice before afforestation that can increase soil carbon (C) release by changing the soil microbial community. This study examined changes in soil microbial communities at two different times (the 7th and 98th days) after site clearing (brush clearing vs. controlled burning), followed by soil preparation (overall soil preparation (OP), spot soil preparation (SP), and no soil preparation (NP)). Results showed that total, bacterial, fungal, and actinomycetic phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) increased in controlled burning plots compared with brush clearing plots at the two sampling times. Within brush clearing plots, OP significantly reduced the total, bacterial, fungal, and actinomycetic PLFAs, whereas SP showed a significant increase in these groups compared with NP. In addition, soil microbial community showed obvious seasonal variation in brush clearing plots. Within controlled burning plots, OP significantly decreased the total, bacterial, fungal, and actinomycetic PLFAs. The variations in microbial community composition significantly correlated with soil organic C, total nitrogen (N), dissolved organic C, and C-N ratios. Our results suggest that controlled burning and spot soil preparation can create some soil conditions more conducive to soil microbial communities in the short term, but the long-term effects merit further investigation. Key words: brush clearing, controlled burning, overall soil preparation, spot soil preparation, subtropical China. La preparation du terrain est une pratique courante avant de reboiser, ce qui peut augmenter la liberation du carbone (C) du sol en modifiant la communaute microbienne dans le sol. Cette etude s'interesse aux changements dans les communautes microbiennes du sol a deux moments differents (les 7e et 98e jours) apres le nettoyage du terrain (debroussaillage vs brulage dirige) suivi de la preparation du sol (preparation generalisee (PG), preparation localisee (PL) et aucune preparation (NP)). Les resultats ont montre que les acides gras phospholipidiques (AGPL) actinomycetiques, fongiques, bacteriens et totaux ont augmente a chaque periode d'echantillonnage dans les placettes soumises au brulage dirige comparativement aux placettes debroussaillees. Dans les placettes debroussaillees, le traitement PG a significativement reduit les AGPL actinomycetiques, fongiques, bacteriens et totaux tandis que ces groupes ont significativement augmente dans le traitement PL comparativement au traitement NP. De plus, la communaute microbienne du sol connaissait une variation saisonniere evidente dans les placettes debroussaillees. Dans les placettes soumises au brulage dirige, le traitement PG a significativement reduit les AGPL actinomycetiques, fongiques, bacteriens et totaux. Les variations dans la composition des communautes microbiennes etaient significativement correlees avec le C organique, l'azote (N) total, le C organique dissout et le rapport C-N dans le sol. Nos resultats indiquent que le brulage dirige et la preparation localisee du sol peuvent creer des conditions plus propices aux communautes microbiennes du sol a court terme mais les effets a long terme meritent qu'on poursuive les etudes. [Traduit par la Redaction] Mots-cles: debroussaillage, brulage dirige, preparation generalisee du sol, preparation localisee du sol, Chine subtropicale., 1. Introduction China has the largest forest plantation area in the world, approximately 69.33 million ha, based on the most recent (8th) national forest inventory. The plantations play an increasingly [...]

Despite the considerable social and economic benefits of hydropower dams, they can cause total dissolved gas (TDG) supersaturation downstream of hydropower dams, which can harm fish through gas bubble trauma (GBT) and cause issues with aquatic ecology. This paper systematically reviewed the generation and release mechanism of TDG supersaturation, including three stages of TDG generation and release, to broaden the research ideas of TDG supersaturation and encourage the construction of environmentally friendly dams and other hydropower projects. The factors affecting the generation and release were summarized from the three stages of TDG generation and release, including temperature, momentum difference at the water‐air interface, and effective depth of bubble arrival. The research methods were introduced from four aspects: theoretical methods, field observations, experiments, and numerical simulations. The advantages, disadvantages, and application scopes of different research methods were outlined. Finally, the abatement measures in the three stages of TDG generation and release were introduced from the engineering and non‐engineering perspectives, and the future research directions were pointed out from the four aspects of TDG supersaturation generation and release mechanism, research methods, abatement measures, and management methods, including in‐depth study of whether gas‐liquid transfer through bubble surfaces or free surfaces dominates, consideration of bubble coalescence and rupture to improve the accuracy of numerical methods in TDG supersaturation prediction, the combination of engineering and non‐engineering measures to optimize TDG supersaturation abatement measures and consideration of artificial intelligence technology to improve hydropower project management methods. Plain Language Summary: Generally, the dissolved amount of total dissolved gas (TDG) in water and that in the atmosphere is in balance, and the state at this time is called the phase equilibrium state. When the dissolved gas concentration in water is higher than the equilibrium concentration, TDG supersaturation will occur. TDG supersaturation often occurs in dam flood discharge, and its adverse effect is to harm fish through gas bubble trauma and cause issues with aquatic ecology. This paper systematically reviewed the generation and release mechanism of TDG supersaturation, including three stages of TDG generation and release, to broaden the research ideas of TDG supersaturation and encourage the construction of environmentally friendly dams and other hydropower projects. Key Points: The review covers the generation and release mechanism and abatement measures for total dissolved gas (TDG) supersaturationSummarize the factors affecting TDG supersaturationThe advantages, disadvantages, and application scopes of different research methods are highlighted [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]