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Temperature fluctuations induced by mountain waves can play a crucial role in the formation of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs). In particular, the cold phase of the waves can lower local temperatures sufficiently to trigger PSC formation, even when large-scale background temperatures are too high. To provide new quantitative constraints on the relevance of this effect, this study analyzes a decade (2002–2012) of ice PSC detections obtained from Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) measurements and ERA5 data in the polar winter lower stratosphere. In the MIPAS observations, we find that approximately 52 % of the Arctic ice PSCs and 26 % of the Antarctic ice PSCs are detected at temperatures above the local Tice. Ice PSCs above Tice are concentrated around mountainous regions and their downwind directions. A backward-trajectory analysis is performed to investigate the temperature history of each ice PSC observation. The cumulative fraction of ice PSCs above Tice increases as the trajectory gets closer to the observation point. The most significant change in the fraction of ice PSCs above Tice occurs within the 6 h preceding the observations. At the observation point, the mean fractions of ice PSCs above Tice, taking into account temperature fluctuations along the backward trajectory, are 33 % in the Arctic and 9 % in the Antarctic. The results provide a quantitative assessment of the occurrence of ice PSCs above Tice in connection with orographic waves. Additionally, the observational statistics presented can be utilized for comparison with chemistry climate simulations.

Cold extremes have large impacts on human society. Understanding the physical processes dominating the changes in cold extremes is crucial for a reliable projection of future climate change. The observed cold extremes have decreased during the last several decades, and this trend will continue under future global warming. Here, we quantitatively identify the contributions of dynamic (changes in large-scale atmospheric circulation) and thermodynamic (rising temperatures resulting from global warming) effects to East Asian cold extremes in the past several decades and in a future warm climate by using two sets of large-ensemble simulations of climate models. We show that the dynamic component accounts for over 80 % of the cold-month (coldest 5 % boreal winter months) surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly over the past 5 decades. However, in a future warm climate, the thermodynamic change is the main contributor to the decreases in the intensity and occurrence probability of East Asian cold extremes, while the dynamic change is also contributive. The intensity of East Asian cold extremes will decrease by around 5 °C at the end of the 21st century, in which the thermodynamic (dynamic) change contributes approximately 75 % (25 %). The present-day (1986–2005) East Asian cold extremes will almost never occur after around 2035, and this will happen 10 years later due solely to thermodynamic change. The upward trend of a positive Arctic Oscillation-like sea level pressure pattern dominates the changes in the dynamic component. The finding provides a useful reference for policymakers in climate change adaptation activities.

Abstract Background Contact tracing has been essential to reducing spread of COVID-19. Singapore leveraged technology to assist with contact tracing efforts using a Bluetooth-based app and token platform called ‘TraceTogether’. Methods We reviewed the impact of this system during the country’s Delta and Omicron waves (24 August 2021 to 17 February 2022) to identify differences in number of close contacts and time savings between full automation using TraceTogether alone as compared to manual contact tracing supplemented by TraceTogether. Characteristics of digital contact tracing app or token users were reviewed. Thereafter, the number of close contacts identified by manual and digital contact tracing methods, and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases among contacts were analysed. The difference in time taken for identification of close contacts was also determined. Findings Adoption rate for TraceTogether was high, with 93.3% of cases having a registered device. There was a 9.8 h (34.9%) reduction in time savings for close contacts to be informed using TraceTogether alone compared to manual contact tracing supplemented by TraceTogether. The proportion of close contacts automatically identified through TraceTogether alone and turned positive was 3.6%. For those identified through manual contact tracing supplemented by TraceTogether, this proportion was 12.5% and 6.2% for those served quarantine orders and health risk warnings respectively. Interpretation The high adoption rate of ‘TraceTogether’ suggest that digital solutions remain a promising option to improve contact tracing in future epidemics. This may have been through its concurrent use with vaccine differentiated public health measures and policies which engender public trust. There is future potential for utilising such technology in managing communicable diseases to achieve good public health outcomes.

This paper proposes a corner reflector and Luneburg ball reflector group. The omnidirectional radar cross-sectional (RCS) distribution characteristics of a fighter are simulated using the sharp and smooth RCS distribution features of the corner and the Luneburg ball reflectors, respectively. A new type of Doppler signal generation principle is proposed to design a Doppler frequency simulator to transmit frequency signals by connecting in parallel with the metal layer of the corner reflector and the Luneburg sphere ball, and then transmit through their other end. The existing radar target aircraft cannot simulate the RCS and speed of the targets that are less than 0.005 m2 by enhancing the echo intensity of the target location, which makes it impossible for the military to conduct practice drills and evaluate the effectiveness of the air defense systems. The experimental results show that the Doppler frequency simulator successfully simulates the target speed of 0-80 km/h and when the speed is greater than 20 km/h, the error of the simulation frequency is less than 1.5%. The proposed method can provide guidance and a theoretical basis for simulating the speed of various types of aircraft in future work.

This study developed a novel S-band radar system for planar location applications. High-resolution range imaging and target angle estimation were achieved by using a stepped frequency continuous wave (SFCW) signal and single input multiple output (SIMO) architecture with a linear sparse array layout, respectively. An improved time-frequency method was utilized to link the independent range profile and angle spectrum results to obtain the plane positions of the targets. The radar hardware was composed of the antenna array with one transmit element and five receive elements, an RF transceiver, and a signal processing component. Under the proposed waveform parameters and signal processing scheme, a 16-ms process cycle, 0.3-m ranging error, and 0.4° angle estimation error for target positioning were achieved in field tests. These results demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed radar system.

High-order optical nonlinearities are a key tool in photonics and quantum optics, but their use is hindered by materials’ small intrinsic high-order susceptibility. Here, the authors show how to realize high-order nonlinear processes by combining intrinsic low-order ones in a microcavity.

Exotic quantum states can be advantageous for sensing, but are very fragile, so that some form of quantum error correction is needed. Here, the authors show how approximate QEC helps overcoming decoherence due to noise when measuring the excitation population of a receiver mode in a superconducting circuit.

Ice clouds play an important role in regulating water vapor and influencing the radiative budget in the atmosphere. This study investigates stratospheric ice clouds (SICs) in the latitude range between ±60∘ based on the Cloud–Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO). As polar stratospheric clouds include other particles, they are not discussed in this work. Tropopause temperature, double tropopauses, clouds in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS), gravity waves, and stratospheric aerosols are analyzed to investigate their relationships with the occurrence of and variability in SICs in the tropics and at midlatitudes. We found that SICs with cloud-top heights of 250 m above the first lapse rate tropopause are mainly detected in the tropics. Monthly time series of SICs from 2007 to 2019 show that high occurrence frequencies of SICs follow the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) over time in the tropics and that SICs vary interannually at different latitudes. Results show that SICs associated with double tropopauses, which are related to poleward isentropic transport, are mostly found at midlatitudes. More than 80 % of the SICs around 30∘ N/S are associated with double tropopauses. Correlation coefficients of SICs and all the other abovementioned processes confirm that the occurrence of and variability in SICs are mainly associated with the tropopause temperature in the tropics and at midlatitudes. UTLS clouds, which are retrieved from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and used as a proxy for deep convection in the tropics and high-altitude ice cloud sources at midlatitudes, have the highest correlations with SICs in the monsoon regions and the central United States. Gravity waves are mostly related to SICs at midlatitudes, especially over Patagonia and the Drake Passage. However, the second-highest correlation coefficients show that the cold tropopause temperature, the occurrence of double tropopauses, high stratospheric aerosol loading, frequent UTLS clouds, and gravity waves are highly correlated with the SICs locally. The long-term anomaly analyses show that interannual anomalies of SICs are correlated with the tropopause temperature and stratospheric aerosols instead of the UTLS clouds and gravity waves. The overlapping and similar correlation coefficients between SICs and all processes mentioned above indicate strong associations between those processes themselves. Due to their high inherent correlations, it is challenging to disentangle and evaluate their contributions to the occurrence of SICs on a global scale. However, the correlation coefficient analyses between SICs and all abovementioned processes (tropopause temperature, double tropopauses, clouds in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS), gravity waves, and stratospheric aerosols) in this study help us better understand the sources of SICs on a global scale.

Lagrangian models are fundamental tools to study atmospheric transport processes and for practical applications such as dispersion modeling for anthropogenic and natural emission sources. However, conducting large-scale Lagrangian transport simulations with millions of air parcels or more can become rather numerically costly. In this study, we assessed the potential of exploiting graphics processing units (GPUs) to accelerate Lagrangian transport simulations. We ported the Massive-Parallel Trajectory Calculations (MPTRAC) model to GPUs using the open accelerator (OpenACC) programming model. The trajectory calculations conducted within the MPTRAC model were fully ported to GPUs, i.e., except for feeding in the meteorological input data and for extracting the particle output data, the code operates entirely on the GPU devices without frequent data transfers between CPU and GPU memory. Model verification, performance analyses, and scaling tests of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) – Open Multi-Processing (OpenMP) – OpenACC hybrid parallelization of MPTRAC were conducted on the Jülich Wizard for European Leadership Science (JUWELS) Booster supercomputer operated by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Germany. The JUWELS Booster comprises 3744 NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs, providing a peak performance of 71.0 PFlop s−1. As of June 2021, it is the most powerful supercomputer in Europe and listed among the most energy-efficient systems internationally. For large-scale simulations comprising 108 particles driven by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts' fifth-generation reanalysis (ERA5), the performance evaluation showed a maximum speed-up of a factor of 16 due to the utilization of GPUs compared to CPU-only runs on the JUWELS Booster. In the large-scale GPU run, about 67 % of the runtime is spent on the physics calculations, conducted on the GPUs. Another 15 % of the runtime is required for file I/O, mostly to read the large ERA5 data set from disk. Meteorological data preprocessing on the CPUs also requires about 15 % of the runtime. Although this study identified potential for further improvements of the GPU code, we consider the MPTRAC model ready for production runs on the JUWELS Booster in its present form. The GPU code provides a much faster time to solution than the CPU code, which is particularly relevant for near-real-time applications of a Lagrangian transport model.

Ice clouds in the lowermost stratosphere affect stratospheric water vapour and the Earth's radiation budget. The knowledge of its occurrence and driving forces is limited. To assess the distribution and possible formation mechanisms of stratospheric ice clouds (SICs) over North America, we analysed SIC occurrence frequencies observed by the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) instrument during the years 2006 to 2018. Possible driving forces such as deep convection are assessed based on Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) observations during the same time. Results show that at nighttime, SICs are most frequently observed during the thunderstorm season over the Great Plains from May to August (MJJA) with a maximum occurrence frequency of 6.2 %. During the months from November to February (NDJF), the highest SICs occurrence frequencies are 5.5 % over the north-eastern Pacific and western Canada and 4.4 % over the western North Atlantic. Occurrence frequencies of deep convection from AIRS, which includes storm systems, fronts, mesoscale convective systems, and mesoscale convective complexes at midlatitude and high latitude, show similar hotspots like the SICs, with highest occurrence frequencies being observed over the Great Plains in MJJA (4.4 %) and over the north-eastern Pacific, western Canada, and the western North Atlantic in NDJF (∼ 2.5 %). Both, seasonal patterns and daily time series of SICs and deep convection show a high degree of spatial and temporal relation. Further analysis indicates that the maximum fraction of SICs related to deep convection is 74 % over the Great Plains in MJJA and about 50 % over the western North Atlantic, the north-eastern Pacific, and western Canada in NDJF. We conclude that, locally and regionally, deep convection is the leading factor related to the occurrence of SICs over North America. In this study, we also analysed the impact of gravity waves as another important factor related to the occurrence of SICs, as the Great Plains is a well-known hotspot for stratospheric gravity waves. In the cases where SICs are not directly linked to deep convection, we found that stratospheric gravity wave observations correlate with SICs with as much as 30 % of the cases over the Great Plains in MJJA, about 50 % over the north-eastern Pacific and western Canada, and up to 90 % over eastern Canada and the north-west Atlantic in NDJF. Our results provide a better understanding of the physical processes and climate variability related to SICs and will be of interest for modellers as SIC sources such as deep convection and gravity waves are small-scale processes that are difficult to represent in global general circulation models.

Air pollution is a major issue in China and one of the largest threats to public health. We investigated future changes in atmospheric circulation patterns associated with haze events in the Beijing region and the severity of haze events during these circulation conditions from 2015 to 2049 under two different aerosol scenarios: a maximum technically feasible aerosol reduction (MTFR) and a current legislation aerosol scenario (CLE). In both cases greenhouse gas emissions follow the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 (RCP4.5). Under RCP4.5 with CLE aerosol the frequency of circulation patterns associated with haze events increases due to a weakening of the East Asian winter monsoon via increased sea level pressure over the North Pacific. The rapid reduction in anthropogenic aerosol and precursor emissions in MTFR further increases the frequency of circulation patterns associated with haze events, due to further increases in the sea level pressure over the North Pacific and a reduction in the intensity of the Siberian high. Even with the aggressive aerosol reductions in MTFR periods of poor visibility, represented by above-normal aerosol optical depth (AOD), still occur in conjunction with haze-favorable atmospheric circulation. However, the winter mean intensity of poor visibility decreases in MTFR, so that haze events are less dangerous in this scenario by 2050 compared to CLE and relative to the current baseline. This study reveals the competing effects of aerosol emission reductions on future haze events through their direct contribution to pollutant source and their influence on the atmospheric circulation. A compound consideration of these two impacts should be taken in future policy making.

As knowledge about the cirrus clouds in the lower stratosphere is limited, reliable long-term measurements are needed to assess their characteristics, radiative impact and important role in upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) chemistry. We used 6 years (2006–2012) of Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) measurements to investigate the global and seasonal distribution of stratospheric cirrus clouds and compared the MIPAS results with results derived from the latest version (V4.x) of the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) data. For the identification of stratospheric cirrus clouds, precise information on both the cloud top height (CTH) and the tropopause height is crucial. Here, we used lapse rate tropopause heights estimated from the ERA-Interim global reanalysis. Considering the uncertainties of the tropopause heights and the vertical sampling grid, we define CTHs more than 0.5 km above the tropopause as stratospheric for CALIPSO data. For MIPAS data, we took into account the coarser vertical sampling grid and the broad field of view so that we considered cirrus CTHs detected more than 0.75 km above the tropopause as stratospheric. Further sensitivity tests were conducted to rule out sampling artefacts in MIPAS data. The global distribution of stratospheric cirrus clouds was derived from night-time measurements because of the higher detection sensitivity of CALIPSO. In both data sets, MIPAS and CALIPSO, the stratospheric cirrus cloud occurrence frequencies are significantly higher in the tropics than in the extra-tropics. Tropical hotspots of stratospheric cirrus clouds associated with deep convection are located over equatorial Africa, South and Southeast Asia, the western Pacific, and South America. Stratospheric cirrus clouds were more often detected in December–February (15 %) than June–August (8 %) in the tropics (±20∘). At northern and southern middle latitudes (40–60∘), MIPAS observed about twice as many stratospheric cirrus clouds (occurrence frequencies of 4 %–5 % for MIPAS rather than about 2 % for CALIPSO). We attribute more frequent observations of stratospheric cirrus clouds with MIPAS to the higher detection sensitivity of the instrument to optically thin clouds. In contrast to the difference between daytime and night-time occurrence frequencies of stratospheric cirrus clouds by a factor of about 2 in zonal means in the tropics (4 % and 10 %, respectively) and at middle latitudes for CALIPSO data, there is little diurnal cycle in MIPAS data, in which the difference of occurrence frequencies in the tropics is about 1 percentage point in zonal mean and about 0.5 percentage point at middle latitudes. The difference between CALIPSO day and night measurements can also be attributed to their differences in detection sensitivity. Future work should focus on better understanding the origin of the stratospheric cirrus clouds and their impact on radiative forcing and climate.

A high gain low sidelobe monopulse microstrip array antenna for Ku-band frequency modulated conti-nuous wave (FMCW) radar application is proposed. The design consists of microstrip array radiation front-end and waveguide coupling slot array feeding network back-end. The microstrip array comprises 16×32 series-fed patches etched on the top side and slotted ground on the bottom side. A series of shunt slots in the broad-wall are loaded on a WR51 standard magic Tee waveguide to form a compact low loss monopulse comparator and hybrid feeding network. The radiation front and feeding network is individually fabricated with standard printed circuit board (PCB) and machining process and then can be integrated by advanced assembling process. Precise alignment of waveguide slots and ground slots is obtained during these procedures to achieve accurate excitation. Measured results are in accordance with simulation results and show about 32.5dBi max gain and -25dB sidelobe level (SLL) of sum pattern in E plane and -27dB null-depth of difference pattern at 17 GHz center frequency.

Developing eco-friendly, flexible thermoplastic elastomeric foams based on poly(styrene-(ethylene-co-butylene)-styrene) (SEBS) is a challenging task because of its poor melt strength. A promising approach to overcome this challenge is the use of synergistic technologies, such as combination of irradiation, supercritical fluid foaming, and steam-chest molding technologies. Herein, foamed beads were produced from pre-crosslinked SEBS beads using supercritical nitrogen as blowing agent, followed by subsequently efficient steam-chest molding to obtain midsole part. The crosslinking was accomplished under the assistance of electron beam. The rheology properties and foaming behavior reveals that the viscosity and modulus of the matrix increase with the increase of crosslinking resulting from increasing the irradiation dose (ID). With increasing the ID, successful foaming with larger expansion and improved cell morphology was achieved. SEBS bead foams were successfully obtained from 65 kGy-derived pre-crosslinked beads through steam-chest molding which showed a specific gravity of 0.252 g・cm–3 and comparable/superior mechanical properties to/than that of commercial thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) or ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) foams. Especially, the higher elasticity and resilience of SEBS foams meet well the desirable properties for footwear application which supports SEBS to be an alternative for TPU or EVA.

Reaching a quantum advantage in metrology usually requires hard-to-prepare two-mode entangled states such as NOON states. Here, instead, the authors demonstrate single-mode phase estimation using Fock states superpositions in a superconducting qubit-oscillator system.

Abstract Background Periodontal intrabony defects are usually treated surgically with the aim of increasing attachment and bone levels and reducing risk of progression. However, recent studies have suggested that a minimally invasive non-surgical therapy (MINST) leads to considerable clinical and radiographic defect depth reductions in intrabony defects. The aim of this study is to compare the efficacy of a modified MINST approach with a surgical approach (modified minimally invasive surgical therapy, M-MIST) for the treatment of intrabony defects. Methods This is a parallel-group, single-centre, examiner-blind non-inferiority randomised controlled trial with a sample size of 66 patients. Inclusion criteria are age 25–70, diagnosis of periodontitis stage III or IV (grades A to C), presence of ≥ 1 ‘intrabony defect’ with probing pocket depth (PPD) > 5 mm and intrabony defect depth ≥ 3 mm. Smokers and patients who received previous periodontal treatment to the study site within the last 12 months will be excluded. Patients will be randomly assigned to either the modified MINST or the M-MIST protocol and will be assessed up to 15 months following initial therapy. The primary outcome of the study is radiographic intrabony defect depth change at 15 months follow-up. Secondary outcomes are PPD and clinical attachment level change, inflammatory markers and growth factors in gingival crevicular fluid, bacterial detection, gingival inflammation and healing (as measured by geometric thermal camera imaging in a subset of 10 test and 10 control patients) and patient-reported outcomes. Discussion This study will produce evidence about the clinical efficacy and potential applicability of a modified MINST protocol for the treatment of periodontal intrabony defects, as a less invasive alternative to the use of surgical procedures. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03797807. Registered on 9 January 2019.

Measuring multiple neurophysiologic variables usually requires bulky benchtop optical systems and working with anesthetized animals. Here the authors present a miniature portable microscope for neurovascular imaging in awake rodents, combining fluorescence, intrinsic optical signals and laser speckle contrast.

To reveal the enhancing energy coupling effect of plasma, a comparison of the welding mode transformation process during 1-µm and 10-µm laser welding of aluminum alloys is carried out through experimental observation and theoretical analysis. The heat conduction welding stage hardly exists in 10-µm laser welding and obviously exists in 1-µm laser welding. Alloy composition and surface roughness of the welded plate hardly influence the deep penetration welding threshold (DPWT) of the 10-µm laser, whereas they have a significant impact on that of the 1-µm laser. In addition, 1-µm laser welding and 10-µm laser welding have similar DPWTs. These phenomena are attributed to the formation of plasma near the workpiece surface during 10-µm laser welding owing to metal vapor breakdown by 10-µm laser irradiation. The plasma remarkably enhances the energy coupling between the 10-µm laser and workpiece by thermal conduction, and the DPWT of the 10-µm laser is thus reduced to approximately equal to that of the 1-µm laser.

Physics related to fast electrons in lower hybrid (LH) current drive (LHCD) plasma is a very important issue, since these particles will play an important role in runaway electron (RE) generation and lower hybrid wave (LHW)-related physics. Utilizing a new hard X-ray (HXR) pinhole camera, recent HL-2A tokamak experiments have devoted to enhancing the understanding of the physics on fast electrons and LHW. The fast electron bremsstrahlung (FEB) emission in the HXR energy range between 20 and 200 keV was measured by the HXR camera. To study the conversion of LHW-produced fast electrons into REs, a very short pulse of LHW, so-called “blip”, with duration of 5 ms was injected into the plasma during the current flattop phase. A strong enhancement of REs was induced by the blip injection. Measurements from the HXR camera show that the fast electrons generated by LHWs is mainly concentrated in 40-60 keV, which is well consistent with the calculated value based on Landau damping theory. The energy of these seed electrons is higher than the critical runaway energy. This phenomenon may be come from the synergetic effects of Dreicer and avalanche RE generation. Moreover, the measurements indicate that the spatial distribution of the fast electrons during LHCD has a peaked profile, implying that the fast electrons are mainly produced in the plasma core. It also suggests that the energy of the LHW mainly deposited in the plasma core region.

The Global Monsoons Model Inter-comparison Project (GMMIP) has been endorsed by the panel of Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP) as one of the participating model inter-comparison projects (MIPs) in the sixth phase of CMIP (CMIP6). The focus of GMMIP is on monsoon climatology, variability, prediction and projection, which is relevant to four of the “Grand Challenges” proposed by the World Climate Research Programme. At present, 21 international modeling groups are committed to joining GMMIP. This overview paper introduces the motivation behind GMMIP and the scientific questions it intends to answer. Three tiers of experiments, of decreasing priority, are designed to examine (a) model skill in simulating the climatology and interannual-to-multidecadal variability of global monsoons forced by the sea surface temperature during historical climate period; (b) the roles of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation in driving variations of the global and regional monsoons; and (c) the effects of large orographic terrain on the establishment of the monsoons. The outputs of the CMIP6 Diagnostic, Evaluation and Characterization of Klima experiments (DECK), “historical” simulation and endorsed MIPs will also be used in the diagnostic analysis of GMMIP to give a comprehensive understanding of the roles played by different external forcings, potential improvements in the simulation of monsoon rainfall at high resolution and reproducibility at decadal timescales. The implementation of GMMIP will improve our understanding of the fundamental physics of changes in the global and regional monsoons over the past 140 years and ultimately benefit monsoons prediction and projection in the current century.

MYB transcription factors (TFs) are known to have important functions in regulating the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites in plants. In this study, LeMYB1, a member of the MYB gene family of Lithospermum erythrorhizon, was cloned via the rapid amplification of cDNA ends. The alignment of the predicted translations of LeMYB1 with other MYB proteins revealed that LeMYB1 contained an N-terminal R2R3 repeat and a high degree of amino acid identity to NtMYBJS1 which is involved in jasmonic acid signalling and phenylpropanoid biosynthetic pathway regulation. To determine the expression pattern of LeMYB1, its promoter was cloned and the sequence analysis was performed. The results revealed a number of potential regulatory motifs related to tissue-specific gene expression and abiotic and biotic stress responses. Real-time PCR results suggest that LeMYB1 was induced transiently during the early stage when L. erythrorhizon cells were transferred from a B5 growth medium to a M9 production medium for shikonin formation. Exogenous methyl jasmonate (MeJA), an effective inducer of shikonin biosynthesis, induced the rapid LeMYB1 expression. In contrast, a treatment with ibuprofen (IBU), an inhibitor of jasmonate biosynthesis, significantly inhibited the LeMYB1 expression. Another inhibitor of shikonin formation, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), also markedly repressed the expression of LeMYB1. Tissue-specific expression analysis showed that LeMYB1 mRNA was predominantly accumulated in roots where shikonin was synthesized. Thus, the LeMYB1 gene may be a valuable member of the R2R3-MYB family in L. erythrorhizon and is possibly involved in the regulation of shikonin biosynthesis.

A simple, nondestructive method for the estimation of canopy CO2 uptake is important for understanding the CO2 exchange between forest and atmosphere. Canopy CO2 uptake (FCO2) of a subtropical mature \textit{A. mangium} plantation was estimated by combining sap flow measurements and stable carbon isotope discrimination (Δ) in Southern China from 2004 to 2007. The mechanistic relationship linking FCO2, Δ in leaf sap, and sap flow-based canopy stomatal conductance (Gs) was applied in our study. No significant seasonal variations were observed in Δ or in the ratio of the intercellular and ambient CO2 concentrations (Ci/Ca), although diurnal Ci/Ca varied between sunlit and shaded leaves. A sensitivity analysis showed that estimates of FCO2 were more sensitive to dynamics in Gs than in Ca and Δ. By using seasonally and canopy averaged Ci/Ca values, we obtained an acceptable estimate of FCO2 compared to other estimates. FCO2 exhibited similar diurnal variation to that of Gs. Large seasonal variation in FCO2 was attributed to the responsiveness of Gs to vapor pressure deficit, photosynthetically active radiation, and soil moisture deficit. Our estimate of FCO2 for a mature A. mangium plantation (2.13 ± 0.40 gC m−2 d−1) approached the lower range of values for subtropical mixed forests, probably due to lower mean canopy stomatal conductance, higher Ci/Ca, and greater tree height than other measured forests. Our estimate was also lower than values determined by satellite-based modeling or carbon allocation studies, suggesting the necessity of stand level flux data for verification. Qualitatively, the sap flux/stable isotope results compared well with gas exchange results. Differences in results between the two approaches likely reflected variability due to leaf position and age, which should be reduced for the combined sap flux and isotope technique, as it uses canopy average values of Gs and Ci/Ca.