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The farmers' deep participation in the classification of domestic waste plays a crucial role in reducing the amount of waste out of the village from the source, lowering the cost of waste treatment, and realizing the sustainable development of rural waste resocialization, reduction, and harmlessness. This paper aims to identify the key factors and logical structure that influence the farmers' behavior in classifying domestic waste and provide recommendations for improving it. Based on the Participants' Intellectual Decision (PID) Model, we constructed a theoretical analysis framework for farmers' decision-making on domestic waste classification, and the PID model was further extended by combining with the practice of rural domestic waste management in China and proposing the research hypothesis that factors, such as community attributes, rules of operation, the status of the participants, and the situation of external actions, have a significant impact on the farmers' behavior in classifying domestic waste. Empirical analyses were carried out with the help of the ordered logistic model and the DEMATEL-ISM using 939 research data of farmers in Jiangsu and Gansu provinces of China. The results show the following: (1) classification of domestic waste by farmers in the sample area was predominantly unclassified (34.40%) and two-classified (40.58%); (2) 17 factors, including regional disparity, Party affiliation, organizational support perception, environmental emotions, conscious governance attitudes, trust in village cadres, social reference norms, and expected outcomes, have a significant impact on the farmers' behavior in classifying domestic waste; (3) trust in village cadres, organizational support perception, and environmental emotion are superficial direct factors; incentive measures, fee level, waste transport situation, difficulty perception, self-consciousness perception, social reference norms, and expected outcomes are middle indirect factors; whether or not it is a demonstration village, Party membership and regional disparity are deep root factors affecting farmers to classify their domestic waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban water resource utilization efficiency is of great significance to solve the water crisis and promote the sustainable development of cities. The current paper aims to help areas with low water utilization efficiency in China to improve cross-regional coordination and improve water resource efficiency. Therefore, the current paper uses an SBM-undesirable model to study the water utilization efficiency of 14 cities in Gansu Province from 2010 to 2018. Then the Dagum Gini coefficient and kernel density estimation methods are used to study the regional differences in efficiency and its evolution trend. The results of the study are as follows: (1) There is a relatively large gap in water resource utilization efficiency among cities in Gansu Province. (2) The overall regional differences in water resource utilization efficiency in Gansu Province generally show a trend of increasing and then shrinking between 2010 and 2018. The inter-regional differences generally show an upward trend. (3) Water resource utilization efficiency of three regions has the characteristics of divergent distribution, and the degree of differentiation continues to decline. The conclusions and suggestions were provided for improving the sustainable development of urban water systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of death, different ethnic groups have unique coping ways. The physical care and spiritual care for the dying can demonstrate the diversity and particularity of ethnic cultural thought. Taking two villages in the interlaced residential areas inhabited by Han, Tibetan, and Hui ethnic groups in Linxia and Wuwei of Gansu Province as examples, this paper focuses on the presentation and significance of multi-ethnic cultural integration in the process of end-of-life care, with a focus on spiritual care. One main point of this paper is that, although hospice care in the modern medical sense is not really implemented in the vast rural areas of China, local end-of-life care, based on the village medical system and religious rituals, equally plays an important role. This is mainly manifested through the implementation of the Narcotics Card System and the widespread spiritual care. The second main point of this paper is that the form of end-of-life care, which embodies the integration of ethnic cultures, contains a certain degree of nursing functions, while taking into account the spiritual care needed by the dying and the grief consolation needed by the bereaved family. Considering the lack of spiritual care and bereavement management in China's medical space, the religious approaches to end-of-life care, as delineated in this study, could serve as a source of inspiration for the country's efforts to integrate hospice services into its healthcare system. In short, compared with Western forms of hospice care, in which modern medicine constitutes the main body, China's local end-of-life care is more reflected in the diversity and integration of spiritual care for the dying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing approaches for the 3D modeling of tunnels suffer from several problems, such as highly difficult data acquisition, redundancy of model data, large computational burden, and the inability of the resulting models to be monolithic. Therefore, solutions to the tunnel network modeling problem for complex structures need to be proposed and elaborated in detail. In this paper, a construction method for a three-dimensional tunnel general monomer model based on parallel pathfinding is proposed. Widely used tunnel CAD drawings are analyzed and read, a disordered arc ensemble intersection trend decision method is developed, and an automatic path extraction solution algorithm for unidirectional modeling of tunnel centerlines is constructed. By constructing and splicing the surface elements of the 3D model, a monomeric 3D tunnel model representing the complex network structure is finally obtained. Moreover, the modeling of shafts is realized based on the monomer model, allowing for the three-dimensional topological relationships between different sub-levels of the tunnel and the ground to be established. The automatic modeling method proposed in this paper is applied to the digital twin platform of a filling project in a mining area in Gansu province, China. The experimental results demonstrate that the 3D tunnel models constructed in this way have a smaller data volume, higher modeling accuracy, and more stable growth of modeling speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The earthquake landslide hazard assessment method is mainly based on the traditional Newmark model. However, when the landslide hazard assessment is carried out along the fault zone, the calculated results are often different from the actual situation because the influence of fault effect is not fully considered. Therefore, how to construct a landslide hazard assessment model suitable for the fault zone is a technical problem to be solved by researchers. Taking the Lixian-Luojiabu fault zone in Gansu Province in China as the study area, this paper put forward the concept of fault effect correction coefficient exploringly, systematically studied the relative distance relationship between the landslide and fault zone, and the relative position relationship between landslide and upper and lower sides of the fault zone. The value table of the fault effect correction coefficient along the Lixian-Luojiabu fault zone was established, and the corresponding distribution map of the fault effect correction coefficient was drawn. Based on this, an improved Newmark model for the landslide hazard assessment along the fault zone was constructed. On the basis of systematic analysis of the slope and engineering geological rock group in the study area, the traditional Newmark model and improved Newmark model considering fault effects were used, respectively, to carry out the earthquake landslide hazard assessment under the condition of 10% exceeding probability in 50 years, and the ROC curve and Kappa coefficient methods were used to compare and analyze the evaluation results. The results showed that the AUC value and Kappa coefficient of the danger area obtained by the improved model with the Newmark model were 0.841 and 0.822, respectively, which were significantly higher than the calculated values of the traditional Newmark model, indicating that the model had a good improvement effect. The Newmark improved model, considering the fault effect, fully considered the influence of distance from the fault zone and fault upper and lower side effects, and the research results can provide a new reference for the landslide hazard assessment along the fault zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine learning (ML) has shown its effectiveness in handling multi-geoinformation. Yet, the black-box nature of ML algorithms has restricted their widespread adoption in the domain of mineral prospectivity mapping (MPM). In this paper, methods for interpreting ML model predictions are introduced to aid ML-based MPM, with the goal of extracting richer insights from the ML modeling of an exploration geochemical dataset. The partial dependence plot (PDP) and accumulated local effect (ALE) plot, along with the SHAP value analysis, were utilized to demonstrate the application of random forest (RF) modeling within both regression and classification frameworks. Initially, the random forest regression (RFR) model established the relationship between the concentrations of Au and those of elements such as As, Sb, and Hg in the study area, and from this model, the most important geochemical elements and their quantitative relationships with Au were revealed by their contributions in the modeling through PDP and ALE analyses. Secondly, the RF classification modeling established the relationships of mineralization occurrences (i.e., known mineral deposits) with geochemical elements (i.e., Au, As, Sb, Hg, Cu, Pb, Zn, and Ag), as did RFR modeling. The most important geochemical elements for indicating regional Au mineralization and the trajectories of PDP and ALE reached a consensus that As and Sb contributed the most, both in the regression and classification modeling, with regard to Au mineralization. Finally, the SHAP values illustrated the behavior of the training samples (i.e., known mineral deposits) in RF modeling, and the resulting prospectivity map was evaluated using receiver operating characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advanced geological prediction plays an essential role in disaster prevention and safety guarantee. In this paper, by combining multiwavelet analysis with modified evidence reasoning, a new geological prediction method for surrounding rock in a tunnel considering the parameters' coupling effect was proposed. Based on the key drilling parameters' curves that were denoised in the No. 1 hole of the Xiaochuan tunnel in Gansu Province, China, the coupling effect of these parameters were analyzed and the power–speed ratio (PSR) concept was thereby proposed to deal with the denoised curves and obtain a PSR curve. Through continuous wavelet transform (CWT) of the PSR curve, the lithology and structure were preliminarily determined by sectional matching and optimization of multiple wavelet coefficient curves under the optimal scales and PSR curve. Further, the evidence reasoning was introduced to solve the uncertainty parts in the preceding result. To avoid misjudgment caused by the limitation of Dempster Shafer (D-S) theory in the case of complete conflict, it was modified, in which the basic probability assignment (BPA) was determined by the interval number, and a binary group was then defined by combining the traditional conflict coefficient with pignistic probability distance to measure the degree of conflict. The division result that settled by this method showed greater accuracy than tunnel seismic prediction (TSP) and the drilling core, also could give a clear division for both lithology and structure. Importantly, by applying the established method to Chengzhou tunnel, the result fitted the real condition well. This approach provides references for rock prediction in tunnels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reactivation of ancient landslides, a persistent issue that hinders urban development and threatens human safety, is the central focus of this paper. Specifically, this paper offers a detailed description and analysis of an ancient landslide that reactivated on February 26, 2021, in Guoye town, Zhouqu County, Gansu Province, China, and has remained slow-moving since then. With a volume of approximately 21.2 million m3 of rock and soil masses involved, this landslide poses a significant risk to the safety of 1119 individuals from 282 households in Moli village and Guoye village. A combination of field investigations, remote sensing interpretation, in situ monitoring, and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) was used to investigate the landslide characteristics and reactivation mechanisms. The results revealed that the presence of sliding-prone rock formations and tectonic movement were the primary contributors to the formation of the Moli landslide. Furthermore, the accumulation of bedrock blocks in the quarry and collapsed rock masses caused by fault activity at the rear parts, along with the additional load from buildings on the middle and rear sections, increased the sliding force. Simultaneously, the erosion of the Dashuiba River resulted in a reduction in the anti-slip force, thereby directly facilitating landslide reactivation. The notable increase in annual rainfall in recent years has played a crucial role in ancient landslide reactivation by elevating the groundwater level and softening the shear strength of the sliding zone soil. The findings of this study contribute to an enhanced understanding of the reactivation mechanisms in giant, ancient landslides situated within areas characterized by highly complex geological conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land desertification is one of the serious ecological and environmental problems facing mankind today, which threatens the survival and development of human society. China is one of the countries with the most serious land desertification problems in the world. Therefore, it is of great theoretical value and practical significance to carry out accurate identification and monitoring of land desertification and its influencing factors in ecologically fragile areas of China. This is conducive to curbing land desertification and ensuring regional ecological security. Minqin County, Gansu Province, located in northwestern China, is one of the most serious areas of land desertification, which is also one of the four sandstorm sources in China. Based on ENVINet5, this paper constructs a high-precision land desertification identification method with an accuracy of 93.71%, which analyzes the trend and reasons of land desertification in this area, provides suggestions for disaster prevention in Minqin County. and provides a reference for other similar areas to make corresponding desertification control policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To solve grid-scale problems and evaluation indicator selection in landscape ecological risk index (LERI) evaluation, this paper takes the Bailong River Basin in Gansu Province (BLRB) as an example. The LERI evaluation formulae and optimal grid scales were determined by screening landscape indices and area changes in the LERI at different grid scales. The evaluation indices were finally obtained according to the landscape characteristics and the correlation analysis of the landscape index value. Through the statistical analysis of the area of the LERI at the grid scale of 1–6 km, the optimal grid scale was determined to be 5 km. There was little change in land use patterns, with the most significant increases in artificial surfaces at 3.29% and 3.58%, respectively. Cultivated land was the only land use type to decrease by 184.3 km2. The LERI drops with the reduced cultivated land area; the landscape ecological medium risk area and cultivated land keep the same spatial distribution. Due to the limitation of the topography, cultivated land is generally distributed below 2500 m altitude, so 2500 m becomes the turning point in the spatial distribution of the LERI. The medium risk below 2500 m dominates the LERI type. Reduced cultivated land was the leading cause of reduced ecological risk according to an overlay analysis. The study of LERI evaluations provides a theoretical basis for sustainable and ecological environmental protection in the BLRB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: Along with the maturity of smart cities, digital villages and smart villages are receiving more attention than ever before as the key to promote sustainable rural development. The Chinese government has made great efforts in promoting the digital development of villages in recent years, as evidenced by policies intensively introduced by the central and local governments, making China a typical representative country in the world. (2) Methods: This paper evaluates the performance and geographic pattern of rural digital development by the Geographic Information System (GIS) in Gansu, a less developed province in western China, and analyzes the driving mechanism of rural digital development using GeoDetector, providing a basis for spatial zoning and differentiated policy design for the construction, planning and management of digital villages based on the GE matrix. (3) Results: First, the development of digital villages shows a prominent geographical imbalance, with 79 counties divided into leader, follower and straggler levels. Second, digital villages show unsynchronized development in different dimensions, with the village facilities digitalization index in the lead and the village economy digitalization index lagging behind. Thirdly, the development of digital villages is characterized by significant spatial correlation and spillover effects, with cold and hot counties distributed in clusters, forming a "center-periphery" structure. Fourth, the factors show significant influence differentiation. They are classified into all-purpose, multifunctional and single-functional factors by their scope of action, and into key, important and auxiliary factors by their intensity of action. Fifth, the interaction and driving mechanism between different factors is quite complex, dominated by nonlinear enhancement and bifactor enhancement, and the synergistic effect of factor pairs helps increase the influence by 1–4 times. (4) Conclusions: It is suggested that the government develop differentiated policies for zoning planning and management based on the level of digital development of villages in combination with the factor influence and its driving mechanism and promote regional linkage and common development and governance through top-level design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: China is beginning to see increasingly complex real estate development dynamics as urbanization, industrialization and globalization advance. As a key driver of economic and social development in China's cities, real estate has created prosperity while facing the risk of capitalization and a "hard landing", making it increasingly difficult to bring it under control. (2) Methods: a new approach that integrates "evolution dynamics–driving mechanism–policy design" is constructed based on the Boston Consulting Group matrix, exploratory spatial data analysis, GIS and Geodetector, and this paper empirically studies the dynamics and driving mechanism of real estate development based on the case study of small county-level cities in Gansu, China. (3) Results: Firstly, real estate development in Gansu is characterized by significant spatial differentiation, heterogeneity and autocorrelation, and its distribution pattern comes into being from unsynchronized macroeconomic, population, social, industrial, institutional and policy development interweaved with the real estate control. Secondly, the real estate is diversified in spatiotemporal evolution models, and the cold and hot cities of different models are in quite different geographical patterns with high spatial agglomeration. Thirdly, there are many driving factors affecting the distribution patterns in real estate. These factors are in complex relationships and they are classified into three categories of "Scale–Contribution–Comprehensive"-oriented driving factor and three sub-categories of "Key–Important–Auxiliary" factors. Fourthly, the factors show large differences in the interaction effects, with the real estate industry scale influencing factors being dominated by bifactor enhancement and the economic contribution influencing factors being dominated by non-linear enhancement. Notably, factors such as permanent resident population, urbanization and government revenue have a strong direct influence on the industry scale and economic contribution of real estate, and factors such as expenditure, output value of industry, urbanization rate and number of secondary schools all have a strong interactive influence. (4) Conclusions: The cities are divided into four policy areas of comprehensive development, contribution improvement, scale growth and free decision. Furthermore, differentiated and adaptive measures are proposed for each zoning, which significantly improves the accuracy and synergy of urban real estate management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power transmission and transformation projects (PTTPs) under new energy grid connections are different from ordinary engineering construction projects. With large investment amounts, various supporting facilities, and high safety and quality requirements, PTTPs are vulnerable to the volatility of new energy power generation, climate, geological conditions, geopolitical environment, technological changes, and other kinds of uncertain factors. Therefore, the investment risk of PTTPs under new energy grid connection is particularly considerable in the project management. For the owner of PTTPs, adopting the engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) mode is an effective attempt to solve the project construction problems faced by the owners. Thus, this paper deeply excavates the key risk points of PTTPs in the initial investment phase under the EPC mode and constructs the novel risk evaluation index system from the perspectives of economy, management, policy, society, and environment. An assessment model is established based on triangle fuzzy number-hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets (HFLTS-TFNs), the entropy method, and the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method, which is used to evaluate the investment risk of PTTPs to provide reference for power grid corporations to control project risks. Finally, a case study in the Hexi Corridor region, Gansu Province, China, is illustrated to demonstrate the rationality of the decision model and find management risks are the most vital risk factors for PTTPs under EPC mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geochemical pattern recognition has long been of interest for geologists to reveal geochemical anomalies associated with mineralization. In regional-scale exploration, geochemical anomalies are derived conventionally from stream sediment samples and processed in the form of vectors, resulting in row-wise outliers. However, geochemical anomalies derived through various means of pattern recognition have shown their limits in depicting complex geochemical distributions. In this paper, we propose to utilize the Shapley value, linked to the Mahalanobis distance (MD), and cell-wise outlier detection to facilitate the recognition of anomalous geochemical indicator elements. First, by considering the compositional nature of geochemical data, multivariate outliers are detected based on the MD in isometric log-ratio coordinates. Secondly, to quantify the contributions of individual elements to the outlyingness of an outlier, Shapley values are used to express the MDs of data as outlyingness contributions of single elements. Finally, cell-wise outlier detection is introduced to examine and quantify the outlyingness of each cell in a geochemical data matrix. The outlying cells serve as criteria for further recognition of element associations. By analysing the Shapley values of individual elements and the outlying cells in a geochemical data matrix, more information contained in multivariate outliers can be recognized. Using this proposed methodology, the element associations that relate to regional mineralization in the study area were Au-only anomalies, Au–As–Sb anomalies, As–Sb–Hg anomalies and Ag-related anomalies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Gaoloushan Tunnel in Longnan City, Gansu Province, China, frequently experiences rockburst disasters due to high in-situ stress. Managing rockburst in deep-buried tunnels remains a challenging issue. This paper employs RFPA (Rock Failure Process Analysis) software to establish a calculation model of constant resistance and large deformation (CRLD) anchorages and analyzes the effects of different support methods and pre-stress levels on rockburst. We simulate the process of tunnel rockburst disasters and find that ordinary anchor support incurs rockburst on the right arch waist and arch top, forming a V-shaped explosion pit. CRLD anchor support has several advantages in rockburst control, such as more uniform stress distribution in the surrounding rock, a uniform distribution of plastic zones, less noticeable damage to the tunnel, and effective control of the arch top displacement. The effectiveness of the CRLD anchor support under varying pre-stress conditions shows that a higher pre-stress results in a smaller plastic zone of the surrounding rock and arch top displacement and a lower number of acoustic emission signals, which better explains the excavation compensation effect. Moreover, adding long anchorages in the deep surrounding rock area can better control rockburst and reduce surrounding rock deformation. Based on these findings, we propose a comprehensive control system that combines long and short anchorages and provides the optimal scheme based on calculations. Therefore, by using high-prestress CRLD anchor support and the combination of long and short anchorages at critical positions, we can enhance the integrity of the surrounding rock, effectively absorb the energy released by the surrounding rock deformation, and reduce the incidence of rockburst disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the pillar role of renewable energy in the low-carbon energy transition and the balancing role of energy storage, many supporting policies have been promulgated worldwide to promote their development. To achieve the ambitious goal of no less than 1200 GW of wind and solar by 2030, China has also introduced policies to encourage the deployment of energy storage for the grid integration of renewable energy. The national policy is conducive to enhancing system flexibility for renewable integration, but it will also add the costs of renewable energy, especially when counting the regional differences. This paper adopts an improved levelized cost of electricity model to examine the total costs of renewable power co-deployed with energy storage in different provinces of China. The results show that the nationally unified energy storage co-deployment requirement, namely, 15% capacity ratio of renewable installation and 4 h duration, will negatively affect the economics of renewable generation, leading to an average cost increase in 15% and 21% for wind and photovoltaic generation, respectively. The economics of co-deploying energy storage under current market mechanism is inferior, but it can be effectively improved when energy storage participates in ancillary services market. With the revenue of frequency regulation, the cost of renewable co-deployed with energy storage can be even less than that without co-deployment in most provinces, except for Hebei, Jiangxi, and Gansu. An independent market entity status is thus conducive to encourage the co-deployment. Our finding also implies for a province-specific energy storage co-deployment policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid flow-like landslides frequently occur in mountainous regions. To mitigate the disasters caused by these landslides, it is crucial to develop robust numerical models that can accurately predict their run-out processes. Models based on the material point method (MPM) offer significant advantages in simulating large deformation issues in geomaterials, including landslides. However, applying these models to accurately simulate real-world rapid flow-like landslides remains a challenge, primarily due to the complexities involved in handling the three-dimensional (3D) sliding bed boundary. This paper introduces a novel 3D MPM model specifically designed for simulating rapid flow-like landslides that propagate across curved beds. The constraints of the sliding bed on the landslide are imposed by the boundary nodes close to the bed. These boundary nodes carry information about the normal vector of the sliding bed, derived directly from the digital terrain model (DTM). Furthermore, the model integrates a hybrid formulation that combines the Full Lagrangian Implicit Particle (FLIP) method with the Particle In Cell (PIC) method, facilitating a stable solution for the velocity and position of material points. The effectiveness of the proposed model is confirmed through a numerical analysis of a rigid block sliding down an inclined plane and an experiment of sand flow on a curved bed. The simulation results from these two benchmark scenarios align closely with both analytical and experimental data, attesting to the validity of the model. The model is then applied to analyze a rapid flow-like landslide that occurred in Gansu Province, China, characterized by a curved sliding bed. The outcomes illustrate the model's capability to efficiently capture the landslide's climbing and turning motions induced by the meandering topography. Moreover, it successfully reproduces the main deposition characteristics observed in the field, demonstrating the model's strong suitability for simulating the propagation of rapid flow-like landslides on naturally curved beds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mining-induced tremors are indispensable events that gestate and trigger coal bursts. The radiated energy is usually considered a key index to assess coal burst risk of seismic events. This paper presents a model to assess coal burst risk of seismic events based on multiple seismic source parameters. By considering the distribution and relation laws of the seismic source parameters of coal bursts, the model aims to identify dangerous seismic events that more closely match the characteristics of multiple seismic source parameters of coal bursts. The new coal burst risk index T is proposed. It consists of the similarity index SI (representing the similarity degree of relations between seismic events and coal burst events based on seismic source parameters) and the strength index ST (representing the burst strength of seismic events). We studied 79 coal burst events that occurred during extraction in LW250105 of the Huating coal mine in Gansu Province, China. We obtained the distribution and relation laws of multiple seismic source parameters of coal burst events to establish SI and ST. Two groups of seismic events with different energy distributions were examined to compare the assessment results based on the new model and energy criteria. The results show that 80% and 89% of seismic events with strong coal burst risk in Groups A and B, respectively, were coincident, and the seismic events with medium coal burst risk were slightly less compared to those based on radiated energy. The results indicate that the assessment based on the T value is a modification and optimization of that based on radiated energy. This model is conducive to improving the efficiency of monitoring and early warning of coal burst risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to study the cumulative lag effect of meteorological factors on brucellosis incidence and the prediction performance based on Random Forest model. The monthly number of brucellosis cases and meteorological data from 2015 to 2019 in Yongchang of Gansu Province, northwest China, were used to build distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM). The number of brucellosis cases of lag 1 month and meteorological data from 2015 to 2018 were used to build RF model to predict the brucellosis incidence in 2019. Meanwhile, SARIMA model was established to compare the prediction performance with RF model according to R2 and RMSE. The results indicated that the population had a high incidence risk at temperature between 5 and 13 °C and lag between 0 and 18 days, sunshine duration between 225 and 260 h and lag between 0 and 1 month, and atmosphere pressure between 789 and 793.5 hPa and lag between 0 and 18 days. The R2 and RMSE of train set and test set in RF model were 0.903, 1.609, 0.824, and 2.657, respectively, and the R2 and RMSE in SARIMA model were 0.530 and 7.008. This study found significant nonlinear and lag associations between meteorological factors and brucellosis incidence. The prediction performance of RF model was more accurate and practical compared with SARIMA model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to their practicability, simple and data-driven empirical models have been extensively developed and applied in practical engineering to predict the run-out distance of landslides. However, the definition of the most appropriate empirical model for specific landslide data is rarely discussed. Moreover, the empirical model is subjected to the high variability of landslide data, which should be quantified into the model to provide more reliable predictions. As such, we propose in this paper, a simple, practical, and probabilistic run-out distance prediction method based on an empirical model and Bayesian method. This method was implemented with a regional landslide inventory compiled from 34 loess landslides in Heifangtai Terrace, Gansu Province, China. In this method, we performed a Bayesian model selection to determine the most appropriate empirical model for the compiled database among the possible candidate models adapted from previous literature. Considering the high variability of data, unknown parameters of the empirical model are regarded as random variables, and their posterior distributions are obtained by Bayesian updating with the compiled database. Then, we developed the probabilistic run-out prediction model to evaluate the run-out distance exceedance probability of landslides based on the most appropriate model and its associated posterior random variable information. We utilized data from two recent landslides that occurred in Heifangtai Terrace to validate the performance of the proposed model. In addition, we produced a run-out distance exceedance probability curve using the proposed method for a potential landslide in Heifangtai Terrace, in which the sliding volume interval is estimated using the sloping local base level (SLBL) method. In general, this study presents a practical method for landslide run-out distance analyses within a probabilistic framework, aiming to provide support for risk-based decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To increase the degree of implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, it is crucial to conduct a scientific investigation of the relationship between fiscal policy, fiscal decentralization, green digital management, and contract selection. This research develops an analytical framework for the application of fiscal policy and the choice of cooperative association contracts based on the contract theory. On the basis of a theoretical analysis of the external factors that influence the choice of residents' cooperative association contract and behavior, it goes on to investigate the interest game relationship and stability of three different cooperative associations (production type, service type, and industrial chain type). Additionally, it runs an empirical test using survey information from cooperative associations in China's Gansu Province. The findings indicate that the cooperative association is more likely to select the factor contract model depending on the strength of the fiscal policy support, the union's brand influence, and the regional market share change of the primary products. Evolutionary equilibrium is inhibited by the association's input costs, but a stable contract is created more favorably the more average the cost distribution is. The stability of the contract and its detrimental effects on pro-environmental behavior are worse the more damage other residents' breaches of the contract have caused. The research findings in this paper may serve as a basis for decision-making and a source of information for encouraging the high-quality growth of cooperative groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The Yusishan deposit is a newly found leptynite‐type niobium and tantalum (Nb‐Ta) deposit, which is located in the Eastern Altun of Gansu Province. The leptynite of the Neoproterozoic Aoyougou Formation occurs more than 10 km long and 3 km wide. In this paper, we carried out a detailed study of the leptynite and related mineralization. The U‐Pb dating of zircon reveals ages of 831 ± 5 Ma and 790 ± 5 Ma for the unmineralized leptynite and 491 ± 4 Ma and 455 ± 4 Ma for the mineralized leptynite. The petrographic and geochemical evidence identified the protolith of the leptynite as alkaline volcanic rocks that erupted during Neoproterozoic at ca. 830 Ma. At ca. 490 Ma, the tectono‐magmatic and metamorphic event triggered remobilization and enrichment of Nb‐Ta as well as other critical metals (REE, Zr, Hf etc) with the formation of industry orebodies in the leptynite strata. The Yushishan deposit presents many similarities with the alkaline volcanic rocks related rare metal deposits in the south Qinling of China and the Brochman, Toogni and Southern Peak Range deposits in Australian. We therefore propose that the Yushishan deposit is a new type (sub‐type) of Nb‐Ta deposit and termed as leptynite type that represents the metamorphic counterpart of the alkaline volcanic rocks related rare metal deposits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Kecai yaks are an important genetic resource in Gansu Province, China. These yaks, produced through the crossbreeding of Gannan yaks and wild yaks, exhibit excellent production performance and high fecundity. Despite these beneficial characteristics, the genetic characteristics, population structure, and other properties of Kecai yaks have not been effectively characterized to date. Accordingly, this study was developed to explore the genetic diversity and population structure of Kecai yaks through whole-genome resequencing. These analyses ultimately revealed the status of Kecai yaks as an independent group within the overall Chinese yak population. Kecai yaks are regarded as an important genetic resource in China owing to their high fecundity and flavorful meat. However, the genetic characteristics of Kecai yaks have not been effectively characterized to date, and the relationship between Kecai yaks and other yak breeds remains to be fully characterized. In this paper, the resequencing of the Kecai yak genome is performed leading to the identification of 11,491,383 high-quality single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Through principal component, phylogenetic, and population genetic structure analyses based on these SNPs, Kecai yaks were confirmed to represent an independent population of yaks within China. In this study, marker and functional enrichment analysis of genes related to positive selection in Kecai yak was carried out, and the results show that such selection in Kecai yaks is associated with the adaptation to alpine environments and the deposition of muscle fat. Overall, these results offer a theoretical foundation for the future utilization of Kecai yak genetic resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anchor plate is a necessary component of the prestressed rock bolt, which plays a decisive role in actively resisting the rock mass deformation and improving the self-bearing capacity of the surrounding rock. In this paper, in order to investigate the effect of anchor plate on the mechanical behavior of prestressed rock bolt used in squeezing large deformation tunnel, a series of numerical, field and laboratory tests were performed. The mechanical characteristics of anchor plate with different shapes and sizes were systematically analyzed. Based on the Muzhailing Tunnel in Gansu Province, China, which is a typical deep-buried soft rock tunnel and suffered from serious squeezing large deformation disaster, the field verification was carried out. Meanwhile, the influences of spherical washer on the mechanical behavior of bolt shaft and anchor plate were also investigated. The result shows that the bowl-shaped plate has much better performance than the flat one, while the rounded bowl plate performs slightly better than the squared bowl plate. With the increase of plate thickness or plane size, the anchor plate has the better bearing capacity, while the stress transfer effect will be worse. Furthermore, the non-uniform deformation will gradually increase with the decrease of plate thickness or increase of plane size. Therefore, it is advised to increase the plate thickness rather than the plane size under the condition of better bearing capacity. The bending-induced stress of the anchor plate increases rapidly with the increase of the inclination angle between bolt shaft and anchor plate. Whereas the installation angle is unavoidable in practice, the spherical washer which has great effects on reducing the bending-induced stress could be a necessary component of the prestressed rock bolt system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Codonopsis pilosula is cultivated mainly in sandy soils, especially in the Dingxi area of the Gansu province, northwest China. They are mainly planted in hilly areas, where large machines cannot reach easily. Codonopsis pilosula transplanting has been adopted with a conventional flat planting way, film mulching and seedling outcrops. While its planting requires opening a shallow ditch, short operation cycle, considerable labor intensity and is in large demand, a simulation analysis was performed according to specific tillage resistance, helpful in the optimization design in later stages and the improvement of a domestic ditching plow's performance. This paper studies the simulation performance of an adjustable trench plough and analyzes the orthogonal test and Design-Expert response surface of the data. EDEM simulation software was used to analyze the traction resistance of the furrow ditching mechanism in the ditching process. The results show that the traction resistance increased from 1751.31 N to 2197.31 N as the simulation working speed increased from 0.9 m/s to 1.5 m/s, 1.25 times higher than the former. It indicates that speed had significant effects on traction resistance. With the increase in working speed, the furrow traction resistance and specific consumed power were increased considerably. Using the stability coefficient of the ditching depth and consistency coefficient of ditching bottom width as test indices, speed and angle of furrowing as impact factors, Box–Behnken orthogonal experiment design method, and establishing test indices and test factors, the regression model between the analysis of the influence of the test index, comprehensive agronomic requirements and MATLAB factor optimization of the experiment, the optimized operation parameter combination was obtained: the forward speed was 0.9 m/s, the angle of ditching was 35° and the stability coefficient of the ditching depth and consistency coefficient of ditch bottom width were 97.57% and 98.03%, respectively. The data after the simulation comparison test can provide a design reference for the domestic small trench operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of China's economy and the continuous improvement of the level of urba nization, urban solid waste has become an important factor affecting the health of residents and the s ustainable development of the city. Will municipal solid waste continue to grow with economic develo pment? Or will there be an inflection point? Based on the environmental Kuznets curve, this paper sele cts panel data from 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China from 2005 to 2019 to empirically study the relationship between municipal solid waste and economic growth, and test re gional heterogeneity at different levels of economic development. The results of the study show that: (1) China's overall municipal solid waste and economic growth show an inverted "S" shape, and the tw o inflection points are about 36 890 yuan and 107 450 yuan per capita GDP. (2) Most of the economica lly developed coastal areas such as Beijing and Shanghai have crossed or approached the second infle ction point, and municipal solid waste will show a downward trend with economic growth in the futur e. (3) In the inland areas except Gansu, the rest of the areas have crossed the first inflection point, but have not yet crossed the second inflection point, and the future urban domestic waste will show an up ward trend with economic growth. (4) Regional heterogeneity test found that urban solid waste and e conomic growth in the eastern region showed an inverted "U" shape; The inflection point is about 75 720 yuan per capita GDP, and the central region of municipal solid waste and economic growth is "U" shaped, and the inflection point is about 34 500 yuan per capita GDP; Municipal solid waste and econ omic growth in the western region show an inverted "U" shape, with an inflection point of about 181 795 yuan per capita GDP. Overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The natural oases in the plain area of the northwest inland basin strongly depend on the groundwater depth. With the overexploitation and utilization of groundwater, natural oases are faced with the problems of serious degradation and rehabilitation. How to evaluate the degree of the degeneration crisis of groundwater ecological function has become one of the key scientific and technological problems to be solved. In this paper, the Shiyang River basin of Gansu Province was selected as a typical research area. The remote sensing interpretation, groundwater–soil ecology comprehensive investigation, and groundwater in situ monitoring were adopted to carry out the research. Based on the correlation analysis method of natural ecology and groundwater, the interactive relationship between the natural ecological environment and groundwater depth in different ecological types of the region were studied: (1) under the arid climate condition in northwest China, the relationships between the ecological situation and the groundwater depth in different ecological types of the region were obviously different, and as a result, the optimal or limit ecological water level of groundwater in different ecological types was also different; (2) in the natural wetland area, the suitable ecological water level of groundwater was between 0.5 m to 1.5 m, and the limit ecological water level was 8.0 m; in the natural vegetation area, the suitable ecological water level was between 3.0 m to 5.0 m, and the limit ecological water level was 10.0 m; and in the farmland area, the suitable ecological water level was between 2.0 m to 5.0 m, and the limit ecological water level was 2.0 m; (3) in order to effectively protect the natural ecology in different ecological types, a five-level early warning and control index system should be established for the ecological function degeneration crisis of groundwater. It may be beneficial to promote restoration and protection of the groundwater ecological function and natural ecology in the inland area of northwest China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Numerous large-scale fragmented bedrock landslides developed along major fault system is a world-wide phenomenon, which are often characterized with repeated reactivation throughout histories. Due to the large-scale and deep-seated features, it is normally difficult to control such landslides, which in turn pose great threat to local residents and infrastructures. Therefore, monitoring and forecasting these gigantic landslides has become a key protocol for risk reduction. This paper introduces such a typical massive landslide, named Yahuokou landslide, besides Min River in Zhouqu County, Gansu Province, China. Reactivated on July 16, 2019 with a volume of approximately 4×106m3, moving slowly and transitionally starting from top part, its toe had partially blocked the Min River and destroyed roads and houses eventually by August 11, 2019. As to emergency response for such huge slow-moving landslide, there is no standard national protocols. Therefore, how to make effective emergency decision has become a challenge. Based on previous experiences, integrated multi-methods, including UAV imagery interpretation, we applied GNSS monitoring and field investigations in the early stages of landsliding, in order to assist the decision-making. The results show that the movement path of the current displacement is consistent with that of the 1989 reactivation event, and the slide body was separated into three relatively independent blocks with different sliding velocities and responses to rainfall. The upper and lower blocks appeared less affected by rainfall, while the middle block responded more to the changes in precipitations. It proves that the combined approaches using a variety of monitoring techniques can play an effective role in the monitoring of rapidly deformed transitional large-scale landslides, and can also provide a set of reference methods for the emergency disposal of similar landslide hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Well-preserved Marattialean fertile fronds are analyzed in this paper that come from the Cisuralian Shanxi Formation of Yongchang, Gansu Province, northwestern China. In particular, synangium in fronds and in situ spores are analyzed in the lab. Data show that the synangium of this species contains between four and five radially arranged pedicellate sporangia. The spores of this plant are small, between 21 and 30 μm, monolete and microgranulate with no visible annule. The fossils presented in this study are included within the genus Cyathocarpus. Furthermore, these spore masses and spores in situ of this genus are described in detail at the first time as a component of the Cathaysian flora. Based on comparisons with previously reported fossil records of these plants, we determined a series of differences. Thus, the fossils presented here are referred to a new species. In addition, the reproductive organs of the new fossils described in this paper provide some valuable taxonomic information. Based on the paleogeographic distribution of Cyathocarpus and the position of paleoplates in Late Paleozoic, we speculated that one of the possible migrated routes of Cyathocarpus is from the Euramerica to the North China Block and Alashan Terrane, terminating in the South China Block. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the application of machine learning rapidly gaining popularity in computer science and other fields, neural network techniques have successfully simulated the performance of in-service pavements as they are efficient in predicting and solving nonlinear relationships and in dealing with uncertain large-area pavement problems. In this paper, we address the problem of the optimal timing of preventive maintenance of asphalt pavements to accurately predict the condition index (pavement condition index, PCI) of highway asphalt pavements and develop a highly accurate, long-period, multifactor prediction model with the suitability of preventive maintenance at its core. The prediction model is called differential evolution particle swarm optimization back propagation (DEPSO-BP) neural network, and the input dimension of the prediction model is determined by gray correlation analysis (GCA), and DEPSO is used to improve the search efficiency of BP neural network and the asphalt pavement usage performance with parameter continuity prediction model. Finally, the Qinglan Highway (G22) PCI of Gansu Province, China, is selected for example validation, and the prediction results are compared with those of the four models. The results show that the multifactor prediction model based on DEPSO-BP neural network has good generalization ability. This model is important for improving the economic efficiency of road maintenance, and can be used in the long-cycle process to provide model reference and scientific basis for the subsequent road maintenance budget application and decision-making scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the huge losses caused by landslides, landslide deformation monitoring has become essential. The change of the tilting angle of the slope surface can reflect the instability process of the landslide. However, there are few studies on the relationship between the instability process of landslides and the tilting angle of the slope surface on the time scale. Therefore, there are even fewer cases in using the inclination angle of the landslide as an early warning method in practice. On August 24, 2018, a wireless tilt sensor network was deployed in the Heifangtai area of Gansu Province in China, to monitor the inclination state of loess landslides to study the relationship between the tilting angle of the slope surface and the landslide instability process. At 4 o'clock on October 5, 2019, the wireless tilt sensor network mentioned above detected a new loess fall landslide. Through the analysis of the monitoring data from the tilting sensor nodes named T3 and T4, we found that the tilting angle of the landslide surface in the pre-sliding stage has significant change compared with the stable stage, which directly verifies that the inclination data can be used for landslide warning. At the same time, we inputted the monitored inclination data into the inclination warning model proposed by Xie et al. (Landslides 17:301–312, 2020) for verification and found that the trend of inclination changes matches the model well. However, the forecast time error is large. Therefore, this paper optimizes the inclination early warning model proposed by Xie. Using the optimized early warning model, the predicted landslide occurrence time based on the data of the T3 node was 0.517 days, which was about 8 h later than the actual landslide that occurred on October 4, 2019, which is an improvement of forecasting. This case serves as an on-site direct evidence to further verify the feasibility of using the landslide body inclination state as a landslide monitoring and early warning parameter which can be promoted and used in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gansu province, considered as one of the poorest provinces in China, faces great challenges in fighting against poverty. This study highlights the importance of studying multidimensional poverty in Gansu province. The Multidimensional Poverty Indices of 75 poverty-stricken counties in Gansu province are measured quantitatively. The main driving factors of poverty are identified through the construction and application of a multidimensional poverty measurement system, classifying the impoverished counties into several categories. This study provides a scientific basis for formulating effective policies to achieve sustainable poverty reduction and high-quality development in the region after 2020. The results show that: (1) more than half of the poverty-stricken counties in Gansu province have a degree of multidimensional poverty that is below the median poverty level, with regional variations; (2) the main factors driving poverty in these counties include shortages in water and land resources, educational disruptions, undesirable medical conditions, and the underutilisation of labour, which show spatial variations; and (3) these poverty-stricken counties are categorised into four types: counties with fragile ecological environments and insufficient natural resources, counties with undesirable socio-economic conditions, counties with unfavourable conditions in development, and counties with relatively balanced development conditions. Finally, this paper proposes policy recommendations to achieve stable poverty alleviation based on different types of impoverished counties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Isatis indigotica planting is the backbone of the medicinal industry in Hexi Oasis, Gansu. In order to solve the problems insufficient water resources and excessive application of nitrogen fertilizer in this area, this paper explored the irrigation and nitrogen levels that can meet the multiple goals of Isatis indigotica. The two-factor split-plot field experiment (2018‒2019) was conducted in Minle County, Gansu Province, China, which contains 9 treatments. There were three levels of irrigation water: W1(low), W2(medium), and W3(high). The soil moisture contents were 60–70%, 70–80%, and 80–90% of the field water-holding capacity, respectively. The nitrogen application rate was classified into three levels, N1(low), N2(medium) and N3(high), which were 150, 200 and 250 kg N/ha, respectively. The standard local irrigation water amount and nitrogen application rate corresponded to W3N3. The results showed that the yield of Isatis indigotica increased first and then decreased with the increase of irrigation amount and nitrogen application rate, the yield of W2N2 is 12.2–17.1% higher than that of W1N1, the yield of W3N3 was 12.1–17.5% lower than that of W2N2. Saving water and reducing nitrogen can improve the quality of Isatis indigotica, compared with W3N3, the indigo, indirubin, (R,S)-epigoitrin and polysaccharides of W2N2 increased by 4.5–5.9%, 2.7–3.1%, 5.2–6.0%, and 1.8–2.1%, respectively. With the increase of nitrogen application rate, the water use efficiency (WUE) first increased and then decreased, as the irrigation volume increases, WUE decreases. Compared with W3N3, the WUE of W2N2 increased by 24.3–27.2%. With the increase of water input, the nitrogen fertilizer use efficiency (NUE) first increased and then decreased, as the nitrogen application rate increases, NUE decreases. Compared with W3N3, the NUE of W2W2 increased by 31.8–34.5%. Therefore, W2N2 can improve quality and increase water and nitrogen utilization efficiency on the basis of ensuring yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deformation of dams has always been the focus of dam safety research. To more accurately study the effect of the Duncan–Chang model on the deformation of homogeneous Earth dams, this paper simulates the displacement variation of a homogeneous Earth dam through the finite element method based on the Duncan–Chang E-B model. The sensitivity of the Duncan–Chang E-B model parameters and the dam material density on the displacement of a homogeneous earthen dam in Gansu Province, China, were investigated using single-factor and multifactor analysis methods. The results show that the displacement variation of the dam during the completion and operation periods is consistent with the general rule for Earth and rock dams; the three parameters R f , φ 0 , and Δ φ are more sensitive to dam deformation; and the three parameters m , n , and K are less sensitive to dam deformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study reports measurements of radon in groundwater conducted in China between January and December 2013. During the measurement period, a great Ms = 6.6 earthquake occurred in Gansu Province, China. The paper analyses data derived from three nearby stations via monofractal and multifractal detrended fluctuations analysis and explores whether pre-earthquake fractal and long-memory trends exist in the time series. Several critical epochs with characteristic pre-seismic long-lasting fractal patterns are identified in segmented parts of the series. In the whole data series, the fluctuation function, scaling exponent and generalised Hurst exponent depend on the fractal scales, which indicates multifractality. The multifractal spectrum of the raw, shuffled and truncated series showed a significant increase in the degree of fluctuation that can be explained as a pre-earthquake indicator attributable to the Gansu earthquake due to its very large magnitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world's key renewable power markets are generally challenged by wind and solar power curtailment. Research on the influencing factors of curtailment improvement can provide a reference for the further penetration of renewable energy (RE) into the power system. Based on the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method, this paper analyzes the factors influencing the wind and solar power consumption rate in China from 2015 to 2018, and four typical provinces are discussed in detail. By decomposing the consumption rate into six factors (transmission structure, generation proportion, power self-sufficiency, resource development, resource utilization, and power consumption), and focusing on the transmission structure factors, this paper further clarifies the contributions of local use, ultra-high-voltage (UHV) transmission, and conventional transmission to the improvement of curtailment. The results reveal the following. (1) At the national level, the power mixing effect and the resource development effect have played major roles in the change of the consumption rate, but the influences of these two effects have been decreasing. (2) The UHV power lines provide a robust resource for the inter-provincial deployment of renewable power (such as the RE power transfer in Inner Mongolia and Gansu), but the role of UHV transmission has not yet been fully utilized. (3) The impact of the electricity consumption effect on renewable power consumption is increasing year by year, but the local consumption capacity remains insufficient (both at the national level and in the four typical provinces analyzed), so it is necessary to further increase the share of renewable electricity in UHV power transmission and the local consumption capacity. (4) The expanding development of wind and solar power may be the reason for the curtailment in Shaanxi, and a reasonable renewable power development plan must be further formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The KIDSCREEN-10 was deemed as a cross-national instrument for measuring Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL). However, no empirical endeavor has explored its reliability and validity in the context of China. This study aims to translate and validate the Chinese version of the KIDSCREEN-10 questionnaire. The KIDSCREEN-10 was translated into Chinese (Mandarin) using a blindly bilingual forward–backward–forward technique. A cross-sectional survey, including 1,830 students aged from 8 to 18 years, was conducted in a county located in Gansu province, China. Psychometric properties were evaluated using the Rasch partial credit model, ANOVA, and the correlation analysis. Results indicated that the KIDSCREEN-10 performed good internal consistency, known-group validity, and concurrent validity, but there were still some deficiencies in psychometrics: first, disordered response categories were found between category 2 (seldom) and category 3 (sometimes); second, item 3 ("Have you felt sad?"), item 4 ("Have you felt lonely?"), and item 5 ("Have enough time for self?") demonstrated misfit to the Rasch model; third, items 3 and 4 exhibited differential item functioning. After collapsing the disordered response categories and removing the three misfit items, the seven-item questionnaire performed good psychometric properties. However, the seven-item version does not cover the psychological well-being dimension of HRQoL, and that may lead to inappropriate measures of HRQoL. Therefore, this paper suggested to use classical test theory to investigate the psychological properties of the KIDSCREEN-10. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the application of various telemedicine services in Gansu Province, China during the COVID-19 epidemic, and summarizes the experiences with these services. In addition, the satisfaction levels of patients and doctors with the application of telemedicine in COVID-19 were investigated, the deficiencies of telemedicine in Gansu were determined, and recommendations for modification were proposed. Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has broken out in China, and Gansu Province in Northwest of China has not been spared. To date, there are 91 local COVID-19 cases and 42 imported cases. 109 hospitals were selected as designated hospitals during the COVID-19 outbreak, and most of them were secondary hospitals. However, it was unsatisfactory that the ability of medical services is relatively low in most of secondary hospitals and primary hospitals. Therefore, we helped the secondary hospitals cope with COVID-19 by means of remote consultation, long-distance education, telemedicine question and answer (Q&A). Our practical experience shows that telemedicine can be widely used during the COVID-19 epidemic, especially in developing countries and areas with lagging medical standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To cope with climate change, it is of great importance to describe the temporal and spatial evolution of climate change vulnerability and its driving factors. Therefore, this paper establishes a comprehensive index of vulnerability to climate change based on the vulnerability scoring diagram (VSD) framework. Moran's I index is used to study the spatial evolution characteristics of vulnerability, and spatial regression analysis is used to explore the factors influencing the spatial distribution of vulnerability. The results show that (1) the climate change vulnerability of China has decreased over time, and the sensitivity state is relatively stable; however, the annual change in exposure and adaptive capacity is significant. (2) The western region of China is more vulnerable than the eastern region, and the most vulnerable provinces are Guizhou and Gansu. (3) The regional vulnerability is generally in a significant spatial agglomeration state. (4) Finally, the driving factors of the spatial distribution of climate change vulnerability include forest coverage, the urban-rural income gap and information technology. These recommendations provide detailed discussions and scientific information for mitigating global warming and formulating long-term emission reduction targets, thereby optimizing resource allocation and providing spatial governance directions for the formulation of adaptation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the construction of a soft rock tunnel, it is critical to accurately estimate the pre-stressed anchor support parameters for surrounding rock reinforcement; otherwise, engineering disasters may occur. This paper presents a support parameter selection method that aims to allow deformation as a control objective, which was applied to the tunnel located in Muzailing Highway, Min County, Dingxi City, Gansu Province, China. Through theoretical analysis, we have identified five factors that influence pre-stressing anchorages. The selection of mechanical parameters for the rock mass was carried out using an inverse analysis method. Compared with the measured data, the maximum displacement error of the numerical simulation results was only 0.07 m. The length of anchor cable, circumferential spacing of anchor cable, longitudinal spacing, and pre-stress index are adopted as the input parameters for the support vector machine neural network model based on particle swarm optimization (PSO-LSSVM). Besides, the vault subsidence and the maximum deformation of surrounding rock are considered as output values (performance indices). The goodness of fit between the predicted values and the simulated values exceeds 0.9. Finally, all support parameters within the acceptable deformation range are calculated. The optimal support variables are derived by considering the construction cost and duration. The field application results show that it is feasible to construct the sample database utilizing the numerical simulation approach by taking the displacement as the control target and using the neural network to specify the appropriate support parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Atomic Energy Science & Technology is the property of Editorial Board of Atomic Energy Science & Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Landslide failure time prediction is considered a challenging issue in landslide research. A significant goal of landslide research is to provide scientific and accurate prediction methods. In this paper, the short-term forecasting of landslides (STFL) model is proposed by analyzing landslide deformation characteristics in a known evolution process. The landslides on the southern slope of the West open pit mine (SSWOPM) in Liaoning province, northeast China, and Huangci in Gansu province, northwest China, were selected as the study cases. After pre-processing, which include eliminating abnormal data (t test), adding missing data (cubic spline interpolation), and smoothing noisy data (Savitzky–Golay filters), the displacement data are assembled to serve as the model's input parameters. The parameters of STFL can be obtained through the Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) algorithm. Using the forecasting criterion, the time of failure of landslides can be predicted and determined. Forecasting results provide evidence that the STFL model can achieve an accurate prediction of landslide displacement (correlation coefficient R2 > 0.99). The forecasting results of the SSWOPM and Huangci landslides indicate that the forecasting failure time of the STFL model is March 10, 2014 and January 31, 1995, respectively, which are near the actual failure time compared with those obtained using the Verhulst model. This finding indicates that the new method has excellent reliability and accuracy in landslide prediction and a robust description of the landslide movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore unsupervised cluster analysis to aid mineral prospectivity mapping (MPM) in two aspects: (1) to cluster geochemical data for MPM based on detailed analysis of evidence maps and (2) to explore coherence of spatial signatures at/around mineralized locations as well as outliers of geochemical data. To do so, a systematic procedure is proposed based on the Iterative Self-organizing Data Analysis Techniques Algorithm (ISODATA). Through this procedure, the detailed analysis of evidence maps in Hezuo–Meiwu district, Gansu Province, China, which portray five selected geochemical elements, showed that clusters with and without mineralized locations provide insight to weighing of each evidence. Finally, through the integration of evidence maps, the favorability score map yielded high AUC (> 0.80) for delineating various mineralized locations in the study area, which proves the efficacy of unsupervised cluster analysis as an aid to MPM. Moreover, the coherence of spatial signatures of known mineralized locations, which comprise a training dataset, is vital to data-driven MPM. Groupings of mineralized locations based on the ISODATA and visual inspection supported by PCs from principal component analysis imply that different deposit types may share the same or similar spatial signature and outliers in geochemical data may be potential training samples used for data-driven MPM. Mineralized locations of the same deposit type may show significant dissimilarity. However, this provides insights into selecting mineralized/non-mineralized locations for creation of training datasets. Interestingly, in the study area, major mineralized locations in zones divided by regional fault are clustered separately into two groups. This result not only proves that cluster analysis is effective for exploring the coherence of spatial signatures at/around mineralized locations, but it also justified our previous study, whereby we performed MPM by zones using machine learning algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the influence of temperature on granite's physical and mechanical properties is significant to deep geotechnical engineering such as nuclear waste disposal engineering. The granite samples were taken from Beishan of Gansu Province, China, a candidate site for a high-level radioactive waste repository. In this paper, thermal damage on Beishan granite under different temperature (25 °C, 200 °C, 300 °C, 400 °C, and 500 °C) was studied to investigate the thermal effect on physical and mechanical properties. Uniaxial compression tests, ultrasonic velocity, acoustic emission (AE) monitorization and scanning electron microscope were adopted. The results showed that: (1) a temperature threshold of 300 °C was recognized, with the increasing temperature, the peak strength, P-wave velocity, and mass loss ratio of the granite decreased sharply. (2) combining with the scanning electron microscope results, the changes in the growth of thermal cracks due to the heating of granite at different elevated temperatures indicated the cracks in the rock increased and gradually formed a fractures zone eventually leading to rock failure. (3) The granite sample was a brittle splitting failure when the temperature was below 200 °C, the failure of granite sample presented shear failure once the temperature exceeded 200 °C (4) The accumulated AE counts increased when the stress reached σ ci (crack initiation stress) and increased significantly when the stress reached σ cd (crack damage stress). The higher the temperature was, the more seriously the granite samples were damaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two new species of the genus Pseudolathra Casey, 1905 from mainland China are reported in this paper, namely Pseudolathra gansuensis Li & Zhou, sp. nov. and P. assingi Li & Zhou, sp. nov. This genus is reported for the first time from Gansu Province, Northwest China. Both species are described in detail and supplemented with color plates of normal light photos of the habitus, sternites VII-IX and details of aedeagal structures in different views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School safety within and outside the schools is a priority for school heads, teacher education administrators and the governments around the globe. In China, despite several policy instruments, rules and regulations, school safety is often questioned and highlighted in the print and TV media. There is a need to address the issues associated with school safety and provide improved educational environments for male and female students in rural and urban areas. This paper uses 12 indicators to assess the safety status in schools in a remote province of Gansu, China and provide a comparative perspective between urban and rural schools and along gender lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific assessment of regional ecosystem service value (ESV) is helpful in developing scientific ecological protection plans and compensation policies. However, an ESV evaluation method that can adapt to the complex and diverse characteristics of the ecological environment has not been established. This study takes Gansu Province in China as an example, fully considering the regional differences in ecosystem service function. Five correction indices for the value equivalent factor per unit area were constructed on a provincial scale, and a regional difference adjustment index for 11 categories of ecosystem services was constructed on a regional scale. In this way, a value evaluation model based on regional differences was established. The results show that in 2015, the total ESV reached 2,239.56 billion yuan in Gansu Province, with ESV gradually increasing from the northeast to the southwest, and the high-value areas of service function being located in Qilian and Longnan Mountains. The forest and grassland ecosystems contributed the most to the ESV. From the perspective of value composition, local climate regulation and biodiversity maintenance functions are the main service functions of Gansu Province. From 2000 to 2015, ESV increased by 3.43 billion yuan in the province. The value of forest and urban ecosystems continued to increase, whereas the value of cultivated land ecosystem continued to decrease. In terms of spatial characteristics of the service value change, the area that experienced value reduction gradually moved from the central part of Gansu Province to the surrounding areas. The evaluation method proposed in this paper provides a relatively comprehensive evaluation scheme for the spatiotemporal dynamic evaluation of ESV in complex ecological environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]