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The FY-4B satellite is one of the second generation of China's geosynchronous meteorological satellites aiming at numerical weather forecasts. The space environment monitoring package (SEMP) onboard the FY-4B is a comprehensive instrument package for plasma, high-energy particle, and energetic neutral particle measurements. The low-energy particle analyzer (LEPA) is one of the instruments of the SEMP and consists of two top hat electrostatic analyzers designed for plasma detection. The electron and ion sensors are back-to-back assembled and are integrated to a shared electronic box. It measures the three-dimensional velocity distribution of low-energy electrons and ions on the geosynchronous orbit. In this paper, we present the ground calibration and in-flight performance of the instrument. With the electrostatic deflectors and the cylindrically symmetric structure, the instrument provides high-cadence measurements of electron and ion velocity distributions with a wide field of view (FOV) of 180° by 100°, an angular resolution of 16.7° × 20°, and a broad energy range for both the electrons and ions from tens of eV to above 30 keV, with a 1 s time resolution. The geometric factors of the electron and ion analyzers are 1.1 × 10−3 cm2·sr·eV/eV and 1.4 × 10−3 cm2·sr·eV/eV, respectively, which fulfills the requirements of the low-energy plasma measurement. The LEPA monitored typical space environment disturbance such as geomagnetic storms and successfully recorded the responses of plasma energy fluxes. Satellite surface charging events were measured, with the highest potentials of −2000 V in the shadow period and −500 V in the nonshadow period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon emissions from civil buildings refer to the carbon emissions generated during the operation of civil buildings. With the continuous development of the urban economy and the improvement of people's living standards, this part of carbon emission puts tremendous pressure on China to achieve the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutral. In the context of rapid urbanization, studying the spatiotemporal characteristics and influencing factors of the carbon emissions from civil buildings have strong practical significance for China to achieve the "dual carbon" goal. Based on the emission data from 104 prefecture-level cities in China, we examine the spatiotemporal characteristics of the civil building carbon emissions from the perspectives of temporal evolution trend, spatial distribution and its dynamic evolution, spatial difference and its decomposition, and spatial autocorrelation characteristics. Finally, we reveal the influencing factors of the carbon emissions from civil buildings using static panel data models and spatial dynamic panel data models. The results of the study show that: (1) During the sample period, the carbon emissions from civil buildings have increased year by year. The civil building carbon emissions have become an important source of China's overall carbon emissions. Realizing energy saving and emission reduction in the operational stage of civil buildings is crucial to realizing China's "dual carbon" goal. (2) According to the estimated results, there is a significant inverted U-shaped non-linear relationship between urbanization and civil building carbon emissions. Most Chinese cities are located in the upward part of the inverted U-shaped curve at present. Thus, the traditional economic growth model characterized by high energy consumption and high emission during rapid urbanization should be abandoned to reduce the carbon emissions from civil buildings. (3) Technological progress and fixed asset investment can effectively reduce the carbon emissions from civil buildings. At the same time, the level of marketization and social consumption expenditure positively affect the carbon emissions from civil buildings. It is necessary to improve the relevant market mechanisms, policy subsidies, and other means to encourage the application of green energy-saving technologies in civil buildings. Also, it is needed to guide the urban residents' consumption structure and lifestyle in a low-carbon direction, to reduce the energy consumption and carbon emissions during the operation of civil buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, the surge in China's CO 2 emissions has caused serious environmental problem. According to the CO 2 reduction commitment in 12th Five-Year Plan, this paper classifies total CO 2 emissions in accordance with industry and analyses CO 2 emissions changing trend of residential consumption and the three major industries which include the primary, secondary and tertiary industry. Cointegration and Granger causality test are proposed to select different influencing factors of three major industries and residential consumption CO 2 emissions respectively as well as check the influencing factors with different leading lengths. Least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) is applied to predict different types of carbon dioxide emissions. Case studies reveal that classification and prediction of CO 2 emissions can highly improve forecast accuracy. The effectiveness of LSSVM has been proved by the final simulation which shows that the proposed method outperforms logistic model, back propagation artificial neural network (BPNN) and GM (1, 1) model in the CO 2 emissions forecasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the study was to explore the influences of arbuscular mycorrhizae (AM), phosphorus (P) fertiliser, biochar application (BC) and their interactions on Medicago sativa growth, nutrient, Cd content and AM fungi-plant symbioses. Applications of both P fertiliser and BC significantly increased total biomass and P and potassium (K) uptake, regardless of AM. When no P fertiliser or BC was used, the shoot biomass and nitrogen (N), P, and K contents in the +AM treatments were 1.39, 1.54, 4.53 and 2.06 times higher than those in the –AM treatments, respectively. AM fungi only elevated the total P uptake by 44.03% when P fertiliser was applied at a rate of 30 mg P kg−1 in the absence of BC addition. With BC application or high-P fertiliser input (100 mg P kg−1), the soil available P was significantly higher than that in the other treatments, and AM fungi significantly reduced the shoot biomass. The minimum Cd concentration occurred in the shoots of alfalfas treated with BC and high-P fertiliser inputs; this concentration was lower than the maximum permitted concentration in China. Although the BC and high-P inputs could eliminate the positive mycorrhizal response, the results suggested that BC application in combination with high-P fertiliser input could not only increase forage yields but also lower Cd concentrations to meet the forage safety standards by the dilution effect. • Biochar and P fertiliser promoted plant growth. • No biochar and P input, positive mycorrhizal response was observed. • With biochar or high P input, negative mycorrhizal response was found. • Biochar + high P, shoot Cd concentration was below safety standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, biochar (BC) addition and phosphorus (P) fertilizer applications on the mycorrhizal response, biomass and elemental uptake of Trifolium repens in cadmium (Cd)-polluted soils. The results showed that mycorrhizal colonization were significantly decreased by 100 mg P kg−1 fertilizer input. Moreover, AM fungi, BC addition and P fertilizer significantly increased shoot biomass accumulation at all treatments. In the absence of BC, the nitrogen (N), potassium (K), calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) contents in the shoots were not affected by AM fungi after P fertilizer application, but the P content in the shoots significantly increased in response to AM fungi. In the absence of BC, both AM fungi and P fertilizer significantly reduced the Cd concentrations in the plant tissues as well as the soil diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA)-Cd concentration. These results indicated that the translocation factors (TFs) were influenced only by BC addition and that the roots could accumulate greater amounts of Cd than the shoots. On the basis of the hygienic standard for feed in China, the shoot Cd concentration in white clover was below the maximum permitted Cd concentration (1 μg g−1) across all treatments. Therefore, it is suggested that no negative mycorrhizal-white clover symbiotic relationships were observed and T. repens could be a suitable forage species for planting in soils with low concentrations of Cd contamination when BC and P fertilizer are applied. Image 1 • AMF, biochar and P input increased plant growth at all treatments. • Biochar and P have no negative effects on mycorrhizal response. • Shoot Cd concentration is below the maximum permitted Cd concentration. • White clover is a suitable forage species planted in the low Cd-contaminated soils. Main finding of the work : BC and AMF had synergistic effects on growth of T. repens in Cd-contaminated soils, regardless of P fertilizer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Breast cancer is the most prevalent malignancy in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, vaccination data of this population are limited., Methods: A cross-sectional study of COVID-19 vaccination was conducted in China. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to assess factors associated with COVID-19 vaccination status., Results: Of 2,904 participants, 50.2% were vaccinated with acceptable side effects. Most of the participants received inactivated virus vaccines. The most common reason for vaccination was "fear of infection" (56.2%) and "workplace/government requirement" (33.1%). While the most common reason for nonvaccination was "worry that vaccines cause breast cancer progression or interfere with treatment" (72.9%) and "have concerns about side effects or safety" (39.6%). Patients who were employed (odds ratio, OR = 1.783, p  = 0.015), had stage I disease at diagnosis (OR = 2.008, p  = 0.019), thought vaccines could provide protection (OR = 1.774, p  = 0.007), thought COVID-19 vaccines were safe, very safe, not safe, and very unsafe (OR = 2.074, p  < 0.001; OR = 4.251, p  < 0.001; OR = 2.075, p  = 0.011; OR = 5.609, p  = 0.003, respectively) were more likely to receive vaccination. Patients who were 1-3 years, 3-5 years, and more than 5 years after surgery (OR = 0.277, p  < 0.001; OR = 0.277, p  < 0.001, OR = 0.282, p  < 0.001, respectively), had a history of food or drug allergies (OR = 0.579, p  = 0.001), had recently undergone endocrine therapy (OR = 0.531, p  < 0.001) were less likely to receive vaccination., Conclusion: COVID-19 vaccination gap exists in breast cancer survivors, which could be filled by raising awareness and increasing confidence in vaccine safety during cancer treatment, particularly for the unemployed individuals., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Xu, Li, Li, Li, Song, Liu, Chen, Zhan, Wang, Feng, Liu, Wang, Liu, Qu, Li, Li and Sun.)

Background: We examined the genetic variants of a Chinese family with a 22-month-old infant with sporadic non-syndromic sensorineural hearing loss (NSHL). Methods: The whole-exome sequence data in the family, especially the de novo variants presented in the patient, were analyzed and the effect of the disease-causing genetic variants on the protein expression level and cellular localization were examined by cell-based functional assay. Results: The infant had no known NSHL-causing variants, except two compound heterozygous variants in connexin26 gene GJB2 ; one was the c.79G>A, c.341A>G haplotype from the asymptomatic mother who was benign, and the other was a de novo pathogenic c.262G>C (p.A88P). In vitro , GJB2 with c.262G>C was weakly expressed and displayed a punctate distribution in the cytoplasm and cytomembrane, while wild type GJB2 was robustly expressed in the cytomembrane. We deduced that the de novo pathogenic GJB2 c.262G>C exacerbated loss-of-function in the context of leaky variants c.79G>A, c.341A>G in the patient. Interestingly, further analysis of exome sequences revealed that the occurrence of de novo pathogenic variants in the infant was frequent. Among the total~47,000 variants, 143 were de novo in the patient, whereas among all 74 variants predicted to be pathogenic/likely pathogenic, 21 were heterozygous and two were homozygous de novo . The occurrence rate of de novo deleterious variants was much higher (31.1%, 23/74) than that in total (0.34%, 143/47,000). It is notable that most genes with de novo deleterious variants were environment-sensitive, such as GJB2 , MNK1 , MNK2, MUC4 , RAD21 and DNA copy number variations. Conclusions: The full picture of genetic variants in the exome might help us to interpret the NSHL-causing variants. More research is needed into the causes of de novo deleterious variants and gene-environment interactions in congenital NSHL., Competing Interests: No competing interests were disclosed., (Copyright: © 2021 Hu S et al.)