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Seismic interferometry is a key technology in geophysical exploration, having achieved significant developments in constructing virtual seismic responses, overcoming the limitation of traditional exploration. However, non-physical reflections in virtual-shot gathers pose challenges for data processing and interpretation. This study focuses on deghosting in virtual-shot gather data processing. We propose a novel method that integrates sparse and nuclear norm constraint inversion for multi-shot simultaneous deghosting. Initially, a pseudo 3D data cube is created to enhance computational efficiency and lay the foundation for subsequent continuity regularization. Subsequently, an inversion framework is constructed to improve deghosting precision and stability by combining sparse and nuclear norm constraint inversion. Both synthetic and field examples demonstrate the superiority of our method, offering a new paradigm for virtual-shot gather data processing, and representing a major advancement in overcoming the inherent limitations of seismic interferometry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The excitation amplitude imaging condition (EAIC) is a high-resolution, computationally efficient, and low-storage imaging condition in reverse time migration (RTM). However, when there are strong reflection interfaces in the velocity model, they will produce low-frequency artifacts, which seriously contaminate the RTM image. The artifacts can be removed by the wavefield decomposition algorithm, but this process always performed by analytic time wavefield extrapolation, which needs extra wavefield extrapolation. Furthermore, an extra source wavefield extrapolation is required to determine the excitation time before the migration. Thus, the additional wavefield extrapolations can seriously damage the computationally efficient advantage of the EAIC. By taking advantage of the directivity and low storage of excitation amplitude, we present a low-frequency artifact suppression method with no extra wavefield extrapolation. Poynting vector, reference traveltime and minimum amplitude threshold are combined to constraint the excitation amplitude updating process, and it makes the excitation amplitude more consistent with the definition of excitation criterion. We can directly obtain a noise-free excitation amplitude without the source wavefield decomposition. Instead of the analytic time wavefield extrapolation, the time-bin technique and the windowed Hilbert transform are combined to achieve the receiver wavefield decomposition only at the excitation time. The numerical results show that our method can effectively suppress the low-frequency artifacts in the image with no extra wavefield extrapolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tau accumulation in patients with Alzheimer's disease tracks closely with cognitive decline and plays a role in the later stages of disease progression. This phase 2 study evaluated the safety and efficacy of tilavonemab, an anti-tau monoclonal antibody, in patients with early Alzheimer's disease. In this 96-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study (NCT02880956), patients aged 55–85 years meeting clinical criteria for early Alzheimer's disease with a Clinical Dementia Rating-Global Score of 0.5, a Mini-Mental State Examination score of 22 to 30, a Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status-Delayed Memory Index score of ≤85, and a positive amyloid PET scan were randomized 1:1:1:1 to receive one of three doses of tilavonemab (300 mg, 1000 mg, or 2000 mg) or placebo via intravenous infusion every 4 weeks. The primary end point was the change from baseline up to Week 96 in the Clinical Dementia Rating-Sum of Boxes (CDR-SB) score. Safety evaluations included adverse event monitoring and MRI assessments. A total of 453 patients were randomized, of whom 337 were treated with tilavonemab (300 mg, n = 108; 1000 mg, n = 116; 2000 mg, n = 113) and 116 received placebo. Baseline demographics and disease characteristics were comparable across groups. The mean age was 71.3 (SD 7.0) years, 51.7% were female, and 96.5% were White. At baseline, the mean CDR-SB score was 3.0 (1.2), which worsened through Week 96 for all treatment groups. The least squares mean change from baseline at Week 96 in the CDR-SB score with tilavonemab was not significantly different compared with placebo [300 mg (n = 85): −0.07 (95% confidence interval, CI: −0.83 to 0.69); 1000 mg (n = 91): −0.06 (95% CI: −0.81 to 0.68); 2000 mg (n = 81): 0.16 (95% CI: −0.60 to 0.93); all P ≥ 0.05]. The incidence of any adverse event and MRI findings were generally comparable across groups. Tilavonemab was generally well tolerated but did not demonstrate efficacy in treating patients with early Alzheimer's disease. Further investigations of tilavonemab in early Alzheimer's disease are not warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate picking of seismic first arrivals is very important for first arrival travel time tomography, but the first arrivals appearing at far offsets are often more difficult to pick accurately due to the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The conventional supervirtual refraction interferometry (SVI) method can improve the SNR of first arrivals to a certain extent; however, it is not suitable for seismic data that interfered by strong noise. In order to better process the first arrivals at far offsets with serious noise interference, we propose a modified method, in which SVI implemented in the Radon domain (RDSVI) due to the cross-correlation in the Radon domain have a better effect. According to the kinematic characteristics of first arrival refractions, SVI is performed in the linear Radon domain. Both synthetic data and field data demonstrate the proposed method can enhance the effective signal and attenuate the strong noise simultaneously, so as to significantly improve the SNR of the first arrival data. Meanwhile, the RDSVI method is tested on the first arrival data with missing traces, which proves that this method can overcome the influence of abnormal traces and is suitable for the reconstruction of sparsely sampled seismic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reconstructing neuron morphologies from fluorescence microscope images plays a critical role in neuroscience studies. It relies on image segmentation to produce initial masks either for further processing or final results to represent neuronal morphologies. This has been a challenging step due to the variation and complexity of noisy intensity patterns in neuron images acquired from microscopes. Whereas progresses in deep learning have brought the goal of accurate segmentation much closer to reality, creating training data for producing powerful neural networks is often laborious. To overcome the difficulty of obtaining a vast number of annotated data, we propose a novel strategy of using two-stage generative models to simulate training data with voxel-level labels. Trained upon unlabeled data by optimizing a novel objective function of preserving predefined labels, the models are able to synthesize realistic 3D images with underlying voxel labels. We showed that these synthetic images could train segmentation networks to obtain even better performance than manually labeled data. To demonstrate an immediate impact of our work, we further showed that segmentation results produced by networks trained upon synthetic data could be used to improve existing neuron reconstruction methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Normal moveout (NMO)-based velocity analysis can provide macro velocity models for prestack data processing and seismic attribute inversion. Datasets with an increasing size require conventional velocity analysis to be transformed to a more automatic mode. The sensitivity to multiple reflections limits the wide application of automatic velocity analysis. Thus, we propose an automatic velocity analysis method for seismic data-containing multiples to overcome the limit of multiple interference. The core idea of the proposed algorithm is to utilize a multi-attribute analysis system to transform the multiple attenuation problem to a multiple identification problem. To solve the identification problem, we introduce the local similarity to attribute the predicted multiples and build a quantitative attribute called multiple similarity. Considering robustness and accuracy, we select two supplementary attributes based on velocity and amplitude difference, i.e., velocity variation with depth and amplitude level. Then we utilize the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to balance weights for different attributes in automatic velocity analysis. An RGB system is adopted for multi-attributes fusion in velocity spectra for visualization and quality control. Using both synthetic and field examples to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method for data-containing multiples, the results demonstrate the excellent performance in the accuracy of the extracted velocity model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To evaluate the serum D-dimer level and its diagnostic and prognostic predictive value in patients with different types of aortic dissection.Methods: Eighty-four aortic dissection patients who were diagnosed clinically in our hospital from January 2017 to January 2021 were selected for the study. All patients were divided into Stanford type A (39 cases) and Stanford type B (45 cases) groups. The serum D-dimer level was detected at 1 h, 6 h, 12 h, 24 h, and 72 h after admission to the hospital, and its expression level with different types of aortic dissection was analyzed. The relationship between D-dimer and the prognosis of patients was also analyzed.Results: The serum D-dimer levels of patients in group A were significantly higher than those in group B at 6 h, 12 h, 24 h, and 72 h after admission, and the differences were statistically significant. In group A, 16 patients died, and 23 patients survived, while in group B, 18 patients died, and 27 patients survived. The serum D-dimer level of the dead and surviving patients in group A was significantly higher than that of group B, and the serum D-dimer level of dead patients in groups A and B was significantly higher than that of surviving patients. For diagnostic value, the AUC was 0.89, sensitivity was 76.92%, specificity was 90.00% in group A, and the AUC was 0.82, sensitivity was 71.11%, and specificity was 85.00% in group B. For the prognostic predicted value, the AUC was 0.74 in group A, while the AUC was 0.69 in group B.Conclusions: D-dimer has different serum levels in different types of aortic dissection patients, with higher levels in Stanford A. Serum D-dimer levels may be used as a better biomarker to diagnose the two types of aortic dissection and play an important role in patient prognostic prediction, especially Stanford type A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Osteosarcoma is a prevalent type of bone tumor in children and adolescents, with limited treatment and poor prognosis. Abemaciclib, an inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6), is approved for the treatment of advanced breast cancer as single agent therapy and is currently under investigation in clinical trials for the treatment of several solid tumors. Methods: The efficacy of abemaciclib was determined using osteosarcoma cellular assays and xenograft mouse model. The combination studies were performed based on the Chou-Talalay method. Immunoblotting analysis was performed to determine the underlying mechanisms of abemaciclib in osteosarcoma cell lines. Results: Abemaciclib potently inhibits growth, anchorage-independent colony formation and survival of a panel of osteosarcoma cell lines, with IC50 range from 90 nM to >20 μM. In addition, the combination of abemaciclib and doxorubicin is synergistic and antagonistic in abemaciclib-sensitive (IC50 <1 μM) and abemaciclib-resistant (IC50 >1 μM), respectively. Abemaciclib inhibits tumor formation and growth in a dose-dependent manner without causing significant drug toxicity in mice. The combination of abemaciclib and doxorubicin results in much greater efficacy than doxorubicin alone in inhibiting tumor growth throughout the whole treatment duration. Abemaciclib acts on osteosarcoma via suppressing CDK4/6-Cyclin D-Rb pathway. Conclusions: Our pre-clinical evidence provides a rationale of initializing clinical trial of investigating the efficacy of abemaciclib in combination with doxorubicin in osteosarcoma patients. Our work also highlights the therapeutic value of CDK4/6 inhibition in osteosarcoma with proper function of Rb. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attenuation is one of the most important quantities in describing seismic wave propagation, which is also anisotropic because of the dispersion relationship between the seismic wave and the symmetry direction. Transverse isotropic media with titled symmetry-axis (TTI) is a widespread approximation of the Earth's surface. For 2D TTI attenuating media, we firstly use the acoustic assumption to simplify the exact eikonal equation for the complex-valued quasi P-wave traveltime. Then we design a perturbation method to obtain the new approximation by solving the acoustic attenuating eikonal equation of TTI media and use Shanks transform to increase precision. Compared with former studies, the new approximation considers the symmetry-axis angles of the media as a factor, which will improve its robustness. The approximation is tested in several medium to demonstrate its effectiveness. The energy velocity which derived by the steepest-descent method is used to calculate the exact complex-valued traveltime. We test the accuracy of the approximations developed with and without Shanks transform in the following. Finally, we discussed the possibility to apply this approximation to the methods like fast marching methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the 3D propagation characteristics of seismic waves, theoretically, 3D surface-related multiples elimination (3D SRME) can suppress multiples with high accuracy. However, 3D SRME has strict requirements for acquisition geometry, which makes it difficult to be implemented in practice. In the process of 3D SRME, the multiple contribution gather (MCG) is a collection of wavefields with different propagation paths. The accuracy of the multiple propagation paths in the MCGs can be directly characterized by the inclination of the wavefields, which can achieve the weighted superposition of the wavefields. The direct summation of the sparse MCGs in the crossline direction produces serious spatial aliasing, which can easily cause the contamination of primaries. Based on the kinematic characteristics of multiple propagation, MCGs can be considered as a set of hyperbolas with temporal and spatial characteristics. Then, the direct summation of the sparse MCGs can be transformed into a process of superposition along the hyperbolic integration paths. However, as the stable phase points of the events, the apexes of the hyperbola have different spatial distributions in complex geological structures. Such hyperbolic stacking paths are difficult to be controlled by conventional Radon transform or constrained inversion. In this paper, we modify the apex-shifted hyperbolic Radon transform (ASHRT) to implement the summation of crossline MCGs with variable stable phase points along the hyperbolic integration paths. Improved ASHRT uses local similarity to locate the position of stable phase points, which can improve the stability of the algorithm and the efficiency of the computation. The proposed method is demonstrated on a 3D synthetic data set, as well as on a 3D marine data set, effectively avoiding the spatial aliasing caused by sparse crossline MCGs and improving the accuracy of multiple suppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alpinia oxyphylla (A. oxyphylla) fruit has long been used in traditional Chinese medicine. In our study, the bioactive components of its roots, fruit, and leaves were investigated, and their potential medical value was predicted. The root, fruit, and leaf samples were analyzed using a UPLC-MS/MS system. The mass spectrometry outcomes were annotated by MULTIAQUANT. The "compound-disease targets" were used to construct a pharmacology network. A total of 293, 277, and 251 components were identified in the roots, fruit, and leaves, respectively. The fruit of A. oxyphylla had a higher abundance of flavonols. The roots of A. oxyphylla were enriched in flavonols and phenolic acids. The leaves of A. oxyphylla exhibited high contents of flavonols, phenolic acids, and tannins. Furthermore, network pharmacology analysis showed that flavonoids are the most important effectors in the fruit of A. oxyphylla and phenolic acids are the most important effectors in the roots and leaves. Moreover, the results suggested that the tissues of A. oxyphylla might play a role in the regulation of disease-related genes. The whole plant of A. oxyphylla is rich in natural drug components, and each tissue has high medicinal value. Therefore, comprehensive utilization of A. oxyphylla can greatly improve its economic value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduced ecosystem engineers are expected to have extensive ecological impacts on a broad range of resident biota by altering the physical–chemical structure of ecosystems. Livestock that are potentially important introduced ecosystem engineers in grassland systems could create and/or modify habitats for native plant-dwelling insects. Yet, there is little knowledge of how insects respond to engineering effects of introduced livestock. To bridge this gap, we tested how domestic sheep affects the behavior and abundance of a native grasshopper Euchorthippus unicolor at both low (11.8 ± 0.4 plant species per plot) and high (19.8 ± 0.5 plant species per plot) diversity sites. Results found grasshoppers shifted their resting and feeding locations from the upper to the intermediate or low layers of vegetation, and fed on more plants species following livestock engineering effects. In the low plant diversity habitats, grazing caused grasshoppers to increase switching frequency, spend more time searching for host plants, and reduce time spent feeding, but had opposite effects on all the three behaviors in the high-diversity habitats. Moreover, grazing engineering effects on behavioral changes of grasshoppers were potentially related to their abundance. Overall, this study highlights native insect species' behavior and abundance in responses to introduced ecological engineers, and suggests that ecosystem engineers of non-native species have strong and important impacts extending beyond their often most obvious and frequently documented direct ecological effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, the improvement of consumer satisfaction has become the focus of cross-border e-commerce platform optimization. Relying on advanced algorithm technology, it can realize the accurate and efficient matching between massive information and users, which is conducive to improving the user experience. Based on the consideration of consumer satisfaction, this paper constructs a dual channel supply chain composed of cross-border suppliers, cross-border e-commerce enterprises, retailers and consumers and studies the revenue and cost sharing contract of the supply chain under the conditions of centralized decision and decentralized decision. The research shows that cross-border e-commerce enterprises can choose to form revenue and expenditure sharing contracts through online and offline channels, optimize decentralized decision-making, and achieve win–win cooperation among supply chain entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For structural geology and geophysical exploration, it is of particular importance to get accurate images of salt domes, especially the subsalt weakly illuminated regions and the steep salt flanks. One-way wave propagators are widely used for imaging because of the high computational efficiency, low memory utilization and capability to handle models with large velocity variations. However, traditional one-way propagators cannot simulate waves propagating at large angles within 90°, making it difficult to image steep structures. To overcome the limitation of imaging steeply dipping reflectors and weakly illuminated regions, we propose a sparsity-promoting wide-angle least-squares one-way migration method (SPWA-LSM). For details, the subsurface space is divided into several fan-shaped sub-domains, and the axis of each sub-domain is used as the local wave propagation direction. Then in each of the domains, we extrapolate the wavefields in different directions by rotating the propagation operator. Finally, we use the weight function to combine the extrapolated wavefields according to the propagation angle, thus obtaining the wide-angle propagation operator. The wide-angle propagation operator is extended to the least-squares migration framework (LSM), and then the transform domain sparsity constraint is added to the wide-angle least-squares migration (WA-LSM) to further improve imaging quality. Using the SEG/EAGE salt model and the BP2.5d model, we demonstrate the validity of the method in imaging steep subsalt structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Passive seismic has recently attracted a great deal of attention because non‐artificial source is used in subsurface imaging. The utilization of passive source is low cost compared with artificial‐source exploration. In general, constructing virtual shot gathers by using cross‐correlation is a preliminary step in passive seismic data processing, which provides the basis for applying conventional seismic processing methods. However, the subsurface structure is not uniformly illuminated by passive sources, which leads to that the ray path of passive seismic does not fit the hyperbolic hypothesis. Thereby, travel time is incorrect in the virtual shot gathers. Besides, the cross‐correlation results are contaminated by incoherent noise since the passive sources are always natural. Such noise is kinematically similar to seismic events and challenging to be attenuated, which will inevitably reduce the accuracy in the subsequent process. Although primary estimation for transient‐source seismic data has already been proposed, it is not feasible to noise‐source seismic data due to the incoherent noise. To overcome the above problems, we proposed to combine focal transform and local similarity into a highly integrated operator and then added it into the closed‐loop surface‐related multiple elimination based on the 3D L1‐norm sparse inversion framework. Results proved that the method was capable of reliably estimating noise‐free primaries and correcting travel time at far offsets for a foresaid virtual shot gathers in a simultaneous closed‐loop inversion manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Passive seismic source imaging can extract geophysical information from underground noise and has been widely utilized in geophysical research. Compared with conventional active seismic exploration, it is low-cost and eco-friendly; however, the application of passive seismic data is limited by coherent noise in the virtual-shot gathers. An approach involving direct denoising in the virtual-shot gathers has not previously been discussed; therefore, we present an iterative denoising strategy for passive seismic data. The reflection-preserving characteristic of focal transformation is adopted in the virtual-shot gathers to eliminate the coherent noise, and L1-norm sparse inversion is utilized to obtain a more accurate solution during focal transformation. A key aspect of this strategy is clean focal operator building at high noise levels. We apply local similarity as the criterion for extracting the majority of reflection energy for the focal operator. Because of strong coherent noise, a clean focal operator cannot be obtained in one iteration. We therefore obtain both denoised passive seismic data and a clean focal operator by denoising using a cleaner focal operator and operator building using updated denoising results. The presented approach can overcome the limits of coherent noise in virtual-shot gathers, which is significant for subsequent data processing and wider application. Synthetic examples achieve excellent performance in coherent noise attenuation and reflection energy reconstruction, especially in far-offset sections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Inflammation and apoptosis of chondrocytes are the pathological bases of osteoarthritis. Autophagy could alleviate the symptoms of inflammation and apoptosis. Previous study has shown that BCL2/adenovirus E1B 19 kDa protein-interacting protein 3 (BNIP3) can induce the occurrence and development of autophagy. However, it is unknown whether autophagy induced by BNIP3 can alleviate the inflammation and apoptosis of chondrocytes. Methods: We used the lentivirus to construct the overexpression BNIP3 chondrocytes. Next, the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was used to stimulate these cells to simulate the physiological environment of osteoarthritis. After that, the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) were performed to determine the levels of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) and the flow cytometry was performed to detect the apoptosis rates of chondrocytes. At last, the expression of autophagy-related proteins was detected with the western blotting. Results: The expression of BNIP3 was suppressed after treatment with LPS. However, overexpression of BNIP3 inhibited the secretion of proinflammatory factors (TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6) and decreased the apoptosis of chondrocytes. Furthermore, overexpression of BNIP3 led to the upregulation of autophagy-related protein expression including little computer 3 (LC3), autophagy-related protein 7 (ATG7), and Beclin-1. Application of autophagy inhibitor recovered the expression of proinflammatory factors and apoptosis rates of chondrocytes. Conclusions: BNIP3 decreased the LPS-induced inflammation and apoptosis of chondrocytes by activating the autophagy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In transversely isotropic (TI) media, accurate and efficient pure P-wave extrapolation is the basis of seismic imaging and inversion algorithms. For pure P-wave equations in TI media, combining the finite-difference (FD) method with the pseudo-spectral (PS) method is an effective solution. However, if the mixed-domain pure P-wave equation contains multiple wavenumbers, using the hybrid approach will involve multiple Fourier transforms, which will result in high computational costs. Referring to the weak anisotropy approximation, we propose a new approximate P-wave phase velocity expression. We then use an optimization strategy to reduce the number of wavenumber terms in the corresponding dispersion relations and derive the mixed-domain pure P-wave equations in 2D and 3D tilted transversely isotropic (TTI) media. Through numerical experiments in 2D and 3D TTI models, we verify the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed mixed-domain P-wave equations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aims: Understanding the influences of environmental variation and anthropogenic disturbance on soil respiration (RS) is critical for accurate prediction of ecosystem C uptake and release. However, surprisingly, little is known about how soil respiration and its components respond to grazing in the context of global climate change (i.e., precipitation or nitrogen deposition increase). Methods: We conducted a field manipulative grazing experiment with water and nitrogen addition treatments in a meadow grassland on the Songnen Plain, China, and assessed the combined influences of grazing and global change factors on RS, autotrophic respiration (RA), and heterotrophic respiration (RH). Results: Compared with the control plots, RS, RA and RH all exhibited positive responses to water or nitrogen addition in the wet year, while a similar effect occurred only for RH in the dry year. The responses of RS to precipitation regimes were dominated by both frequency and amount. However, grazing significantly inhibited both soil respiration and its components in all subplots. Further analysis demonstrated that the plant root/shoot ratio, belowground biomass and microbial biomass played dominant roles in shaping these C exchange processes. Conclusion: These findings suggest that changes in precipitation regimes, nitrogen deposition, and land utilization may significantly alter soil respiration and its component processes by affecting local carbon users (roots and soil microorganism) and carbon substrate supply in meadow steppe grasslands. The future soil carbon sequestration in the studied meadow steppe will be benefited more by the moderate grazing disturbance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the investigation of a vibro-impact (VI) system based upon time-delayed feedback control (TDFC) and visco-elastic damping (VED) under bounded random excitations. A pretreatment for the TDFC and VED is necessary. A further simplification for the system is achieved by introducing the mirror image transformation. The averaging approach is adopted to analyze the above system relying on a parametric principal resonance consideration. By means of the first kind of a modified Bessel function, explicit asymptotic formulas for the maximal Lyapunov exponent (MLE) are given to examine the almost sure stability or instability of the trivial steady-state amplitude solution. Besides, the steady-state moments (SSM) of the nontrivial solutions of the system's amplitude are derived by the application of the moment method and Itô's calculus. Finally, the stability and its critical situations of the trivial solution are explored in detail through the important system parameters, i.e. embodying the TDFC parameters, the VED parameters, the restitution coefficient, the excitation amplitude and the random noise intensity. They are tested by numerical simulations. Additionally, the exploration of the steady-state moments involves the emergence of the general frequency response curve and the frequency island, discussions of conditions satisfied by the unstable boundary, and variations of the time-delayed island. Stochastic jumps and bifurcations are observed for the stationary joint transition probability density of the system's trivial and nontrivial solutions based on parameter schemes of VED and TDFC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The one-way propagation operator in the frequency-space domain has the advantages of fast calculation speed and good adaptability to medium with lateral velocity variation. The full wavefield model constructed by the one-way propagation operator is iterative. As the number of iterations increases, the components of wavefield are more and more abundant. In the full wavefield model, the propagation and scattering processes are independent of each other. The former is determined by the propagation operator, while the latter is determined by the scattering operator. As each iteration increases, the wavefield component will increase by one order. As an inverse migration operator, the full wavefield model could feed back the imaging result to the data. By calculating the residual between the simulated data and the actual data, the reflectivity is updated. This is an inversion process. In this process, multiples will be imaged. In this way, the subsurface information contained in multiples is utilized and the imaging quality is greatly improved. The L1-norm is used to constrain the imaging result, which further suppresses the artifacts and improves the imaging resolution. We have made some numerical examples in 2D case, explaining the principles and advantages of this methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR) is one of the important scientific payloads in China's Chang'E-3 (CE-3) to image within 100 m below the lunar surface. The acquired LPR data is significant for the research of lunar geological structure. Based on the sedimentary mechanism of lunar regolith, the regolith contains many rocks with different sizes. These local anomalies appear as diffraction in LPR data, which reduces the data quality and limits the structural analysis of lunar regolith. According to the kinematics characteristics of rock caused diffraction, we transform these problems to a problem of steep dip decreasing. To reach this goal, we adopt a data preprocessing workflow to improve the quality of the radar image, firstly. Then, a dip filter based on adaptive f-x empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is proposed to extract the rocks in the regolith and the corresponding removed IMF map indicates the degree of rock enrichment and highlights regolith-basement interface. Both simulation and LPR CH-2 data present a great performance. Finally, according to the processed result, we locate the position of each rock and highlight the contact interface of regolith and the basement rock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a paradigm shift in diagnostic conceptualization of Alzheimer's disease (AD) based on the current evidence suggesting that structure and biology changes start to occur before clinical symptoms emerge. Consequently, therapeutic drug development is also shifting to treat early AD patients using biomarkers for enrichment in clinical trials. A similar paradigm shift is occurring for Parkinson disease. In the absence of acceptable biomarkers that could be combined with a clinical endpoint to demonstrate a disease modification (DM) effect in neurodegenerative disorders, a delayed‐start design can be applied to demonstrate a lasting effect on the disease course. The delayed‐start design includes two treatment periods, where in period 1, patients are randomized to receive an active treatment or placebo, and in period 2, placebo patients are switched to the active treatment while patients in the active treatment arm will continue the same treatment. The hypothesis is that patients who start the active treatment later will fail to catch up to the treatment benefit achieved by patients who receive the active treatment in both periods. A usual analytical approach has sought to demonstrate the divergence of slope during period 1 and the parallelism of slopes during period 2 as the DM effect. However, due to heterogeneity in timing and the magnitude of maximal effect among patients, nonlinear response over time could be observed within the two treatment arms in both periods. We propose an approach to evaluate the DM effect with the linearity assumption for treatment differences, but not for each arm separately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, studies of elastic reverse time migration (RTM) have undergone much improvement, but mainly focus on isotropic media. Because anisotropic media is widespread, it is necessary to explore the application of elastic RTM in anisotropic media. We extend the wavefield decomposition method, which is based on decoupled propagation, and three vector imaging conditions to transversely isotropic media with vertical symmetry isotropy (VTI). Two of the imaging conditions are based on the excitation amplitude (EA) and the third is based on source-normalized cross-correlation. First, the wavefield decomposition method is extended to VTI media. This is then tested in a two-layer model. The results show that this extension cannot decompose P- and S-waves perfectly in VTI media; some weak residuals remain. However, the results of a simple model test show that no obvious crosstalk is generated by these weak residuals. Finally, a Hess VTI model is adopted to test the adaptive use of this method in complex media. Many subsurface structures can be clearly recognized in the migrated result, for example, the high-velocity rock body, a fault and two low-velocity interlayers. Compared with PP images, converted PS images have many merits, such as clearer imaging of the anisotropic body, higher resolution and a wider migration aperture. We conclude that the vector decomposition method and three vector imaging conditions can be applied to prestack elastic RTM for VTI media and satisfactory results obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of seismic interferometry provides a new approach to obtain useful information of subsurface structures using noise data. In this study we investigate the feasibility of passive seismic interferometry in anisotropic media. We simulate long duration passive noise measurements for a model containing a transversely isotropic layer with vertical symmetry axis (VTI) using the staggered-grid finite-difference method. Then we extract the Green's functions using the cross-correlation method. Even for VTI media, various reflections and multiples can be reconstructed, and the arrival times of these reflections correspond well with the directly modelled responses. By changing the noise source configuration and anisotropic parameters, we explore the impacts of these factors on the interferometry record. The results show that noise source configuration has considerable influence on the quality of the retrieved response, especially for S-wave reflection events. Since long time ago, passive measurements recorded from a number of noise sources provide sufficient stationary phase points to retrieve the reflections; the effect of anisotropic parameters is small. The Hess VTI model demonstrates that passive seismic interferometry is feasible to wide range of anisotropic parameters and complex subsurface structures. Moreover, a migrated image is obtained from the retrieved virtual source gathers using reverse time migration, and the subsurface structures are imaged well. The synthetic results demonstrate that passive seismic interferometry is applicable to anisotropic media and that the interferometry results can be used to image subsurface structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the large amount of surface-related multiple existed in the marine data would influence the results of data processing and interpretation seriously, many researchers had attempted to develop effective methods to remove them. The most successful surface-related multiple elimination method was proposed based on data-driven theory. However, the elimination effect was unsatisfactory due to the existence of amplitude and phase errors. Although the subsequent curvelet-domain multiple-primary separation method achieved better results, poor computational efficiency prevented its application. In this paper, we adopt the cubic B-spline function to improve the traditional curvelet multiple matching method. First, select a little number of unknowns as the basis points of the matching coefficient; second, apply the cubic B-spline function on these basis points to reconstruct the matching array; third, build constraint solving equation based on the relationships of predicted multiple, matching coefficients, and actual data; finally, use the BFGS algorithm to iterate and realize the fast-solving sparse constraint of multiple matching algorithm. Moreover, the soft-threshold method is used to make the method perform better. With the cubic B-spline function, the differences between predicted multiple and original data diminish, which results in less processing time to obtain optimal solutions and fewer iterative loops in the solving procedure based on the L1 norm constraint. The applications to synthetic and field-derived data both validate the practicability and validity of the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seismic waves propagating through viscoelastic media experience stratigraphic absorption and attenuation effects, which directly affect the imaging resolution in seismic exploration. Without stratigraphic absorption, the ratio of deep reflection energy to shallow reflection energy (attenuation ratio) is invariable at different frequencies. If a seismogram is decomposed into different frequency bands, these signals will show similar time-energy distributions. Therefore, the attenuation ratios should be similar across different frequency bands, except for frequency-variable weights. Nevertheless, the frequency-variable weights for different frequency bands can be obtained by benchmarking against the time-energy distributions of low-frequency information because the loss of low-frequency information is relatively insignificant. In this light, we obtained frequency-variable weights for different frequencies and established a stratal absorption compensation (SAC) model. The anisotropic basis of the shearlet enables nearly optimal representation of curved-shape seismic signals, and shearlets at different scales can represent signals for different frequency bands. Then, we combined the SAC model with the shearlet transform and established the new compensation method. As the signal and noise have different distributions in the shearlet domain, we selectively compensated the signals using a thresholding algorithm. Hence, it was possible to avoid noise enhancement. This is the prominent advantage of the proposed method over other compensation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Initiating from the complexity of ship sailing environment and the nonlinear coupling hysteresis effect of its motion, we focus on the memory feedback shake-reducing strategy turning from the delay generally considered to exhibit undesired effects, and introduce it into the nonlinear coupled pitch-roll ship motions under loads incorporating stochastic disturbances to control the ship shaking and optimize the frequency band distribution of the stable navigation associated with the saturation. This paper then reports the deterministic equilibrium solutions of the roll and pitch response via the perturbation analysis of the third-order scale and successively explains the stability closely related to the saturation and bifurcations. Instead of just formula deduction, visually depict the distinction of equilibrium points and the determination conditions, and the effective shake-reducing frequency band coupled with the drift modulated by the memory feedback signals, and then integrate the moment method and stochastic It o ̂ law to compute the steady-state moment and the mean square scale checked by numerical simulations. Set basic samples of the equation parameters for dual scenarios, and then track time histories of ship rolling and pitching as well as the marginal and joint probability evolutions to illustrate the resonance behavior and modes transition with the energy penetration in complementary ways. The results of our investigation present a new insight into the stability schemes of ship sailing issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rivers contribute a substantial amount of trace metals including molybdenum (Mo) into the oceans. The driving forces controlling the riverine fluxes of dissolved metals still remain not fully understood. Our study then investigated the spatial variations of dissolved metals including molybdenum in a typically human perturbed river, the Jiulong River (JR), China. The aim of the study is to elucidate the relevance of anthropogenic perturbation on the fluxes of dissolved metals such as molybdenum from land to ocean. Our study shows a large spatial variability of dissolved Mo across tributary to main stream of the JR. Particularly, dissolved Mo was generally low (average: 5 ± 1 nM) in the “pristine” JR headwaters, and elevated (19 ± 6 nM) along the lower river continuum. Sporadically high levels of dissolved Mo occurred in the upper North River (77 ± 19 nM), as a result of mining activities locally. Significant correlations of dissolved Mo with total dissolved solids (TDS) and dissolved strontium (Sr) were observed in the whole JR (Mo = 1.4* TDS -1.7, R 2 = 0.86, p < .01; Mo = 1.2*Sr – 2.2, R 2 = 0.70, p < .01, logarithmic scales). This indicates that dissolved Mo is mobilized mainly along with other major ions such as Sr during similar mineral dissolution processes. From the “pristine” headwaters to the mouth of the JR, riverine Mo fluxes at the mouth of the JR has elevated by at least 3 times due to human perturbation. Compiled historic data regarding metal fluxes from world rivers further confirmed that small and medium rivers are relatively more sensitive to human perturbation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, many studies have focused on elastic reverse time migration (RTM). In response to the problems associated with elastic RTM, we propose a new procedure for 2D elastic multicomponent RTM. In this new method, decomposed P- and S-wave components are obtained from the decoupled propagation of the source and receiver wavefields, which allows the expedient calculation of the Poynting vectors and the incident and reflection angles of the P- and S-waves. In addition, we deduce the vector-based excitation amplitude imaging condition. This process automatically accounts for the particle vibration directions when determining the angle-dependent signed reflection coefficients, and does not require the sign to be determined apart from the value of the reflection coefficients. This concept was further extended to the source-normalized crosscorrelation imaging condition. The reflection coefficient of the layered model test was in agreement with the Zoeppritz theory, the PP and PS wave images of the Marmousi II model were clear, and the PS wave images had higher resolution and richer details. In addition, since the calculated reflection coefficients are angle-dependent, they can be easily used for the extraction of angle-domain common-image gathers. Moreover, the imaging condition avoids the polarization reversal in PS wave images and does not require all of the source wavefield data. Consequently, the computation and storage requirements are significantly reduced, which will facilitate the use of the elastic RTM in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an effective implementation of the inverse data-space multiple elimination method via the three-dimensional (3D) curvelet domain. The method can separate the surface-related operator ( A) and primaries ( P ) through seismic data matrix inversion. A 3D curvelet transform is introduced to sparsely represent the seismic data in the inverse data space. Hence, this approach is suitable for obtaining an accurate solution because of its multiscale and multidirectional analysis properties. The L1 norm is used to promote sparseness in the transform domain. Then, a high-fidelity separation of the operator ( A) and the primaries ( P ) is realized. The proposed method is applied to synthetic data from a model containing a salt structure. We compare the results with that of the traditional inverse data-space multiple elimination method and also with that of two-dimensional surface-related multiple elimination. The findings fully demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over the traditional inverse method; moreover, the proposed method protects the primary energy more effectively than the SRME method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many situations, the quality of seismic imaging is largely determined by a proper multiple attenuation as preprocessing step. Despite the widespread application of surface-related multiple elimination (SRME) and estimation of primaries by sparse inversion (EPSI) for the removal of multiples, there still exist some limitations in the process of prediction and subtraction (SRME) or inversion (EPSI), which make the efficiency of multiple attenuation less satisfactory. To solve these problems, a new fully data-driven method called closed-loop SRME was proposed, which combines the robustness of SRME and the multi-dimensional inversion strategy of EPSI. Due to the selection of inversion approach and constraint, primary estimation by closed-loop SRME may fall into a local optimum during the solving process, which lowers the accuracy of deep information and weakens the continuity of seismic events. To avoid these shortcomings, we first modified the solving method for closed-loop SRME to an L1 norm-based bi-convex optimization method, which stabilizes the solution. Meanwhile, in the L1 norm constraint-based optimization process, the 3D sparsifying transform, being a 2D Curvelet-1D wavelet transform, is brought in as a 3D sparse constraint. In the 3D sparsifying domain, the data become sparser, thus making the result of optimization more accurate, the information of seismic events more continuous and the resolution higher. Examples on both synthetic and field data demonstrate that the method proposed in this paper, compared with the traditional SRME and closed-loop SRME, have an excellent effect on primary estimation and suppress multiples effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geometry of continental lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary (LAB) significantly affects the movements of tectonic plates and flow of the upper mantle. However, the properties and geometry of this boundary beneath tectonically active regions in Phanerozoic continents are mysterious and elusive. Ninety–three long–period magnetotelluric (LMT) observations across Northeast China (NEC) provide a unique opportunity to image the shape of the LAB. Probabilistic resistivity–depth model inversion was employed to obtain the one–dimensional resistivity structure beneath each LMT site. The depth of the electrical LAB is constrained by the most probable interface at which the resistivity changes rapidly from high to low. The inversion results show that the electrical LAB is undulating beneath NEC. The North–South Gravity Lineament marks the transition from deep to shallow LAB. The thickest lithosphere occurs beneath the Great Xing'an Range (GXAR), where the LAB is ∼200 km deep. The electrical lithosphere is relatively thin in the east, with the thinnest lithosphere (∼50 km) being found beneath the Changbai Mountain volcano. We speculate that melt depletion, together with possible mantle downwelling are the likely causes for the formation of the thick GXAR lithosphere. The unresolved lithosphere beneath the northern Songliao Basin could be ascribed to the strong attenuation of electromagnetic waves in highly conductive sedimentary layers or the weak difference in the resistivity of the lithosphere and asthenosphere. The lithosphere steps that can form the edge-driven convection in the asthenosphere may play key roles in forming the widely-spread intraplate magmatism in NEC. • The geometry of lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary beneath Northeast China was obtained. • It was found to vary laterally, with the western part thicker and the eastern part thinner. • Thick Great Xing'an Range lithosphere may be due to melt depletion and mantle downwelling. • The lithospheric thickness controls the geochemical processes of volcanic magma in the upper mantle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The elemental composition (surface adsorbed and internalized fraction of Cu, Mo and P) in marine phytoplankton was first examined in cultures of the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum which were exposed to various levels of Cu concentrations ranging from 0.25 to 16 μmol/L with equivalent free [Cu2+] concentrations of 0.4-26 nmol/L. We observed an acceleration of algal growth rates (20-40%) with increasing ambient Cu levels, as well as slightly increased levels of internalized Cu in cells (2-13 × 10−18 mol/cell) although cellular Cu mostly accumulated onto the cell surface (>50% of the total: intracellular + surface adsorbed). In particular, we documented for the first time that the elemental composition (Mo and P) in algal cells varies dynamically in response to increased Cu levels: (1) Cellular P, predominantly in the intracellular compartment (>95%), shows with a net consumption as indicated by a gradual decrease with increasing [Cu2+] (120→50 × 10−15 mol P/cell) probably due to the fact that P, a backbone bioelement, is largely required in forming biological compartments such as cell membranes; and (2) cellular Mo, predominantly encountered in the intracellular compartment, showed up to tenfold increase in concentration in the cultures exposed to Cu, with a peak accumulation of 1.1 × 10−18 mol Mo/cell occurring in the culture exposed to [Cu2+] at 3.7 nmol/L. Such a net cellular Mo accumulation suggests that Mo might be specifically required in biological processes, probably playing a counteracting role against Cu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Periodic changes in temperature commonly occur diurnally and seasonally. However, the response of soil heterotrophic respiration to rising and decreasing temperatures during these periods remains poorly understood; thus the feedback between climate change and carbon (C) cycling requires further investigation. In this study, soils from three grasslands in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau were incubated separately at rising (from 5 °C to 31 °C) and decreasing (from 31 °C to 5 °C) temperatures modes over 161 days, to explore how soil heterotrophic respiration rates ( R S ) respond to different temperature changes. The parameters of R S and temperature sensitivity ( Q 10 ) were used for the analyses. In addition, microbial biomass C (MBC), microbial biomass nitrogen (N) (MBN), dissolved organic C (DOC), and other soil properties were measured. The results indicated a pronounced hysteresis of R S for both rising and decreasing temperatures. Furthermore, the hysteresis loops differed in the different sites. R S values were significantly higher for rising temperature (2.71 μg C g −1 d −1 ) versus decreasing temperature (1.75 μg C g −1 d −1 ) in all three alpine grasslands. The Q 10 values were significantly higher for decreasing temperature (2.42) versus increasing temperature (1.55), with these differences being observed over the 161-d incubation period. Furthermore, soil microbes (specifically, MBC and MBC/MBN) explained 46–77% of the total variation in Q 10 , followed by substrate and other properties. Our results provide experimental evidence for the asymmetric responses of soil heterotrophic respiration to rising and decreasing temperatures. In addition, the microbial effect was primarily associated with soil heterotrophic respiration, suggesting strong asymmetric responses to rising and decreasing temperatures that require investigation in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is mainly dealing with the stochastic responses of nonlinear vibro-impact (VI) system coupled with viscoelastic force excited by colored noise. By the aid of approximate conversion for the viscoelastic force, the original stochastic VI system is transformed into an equivalent stochastic system without viscoelastic term. Then, the equations of the converted system are simplified by non-smooth transformation, and the stochastic averaging method is employed to solve the above simplified system. A Van der Pol VI oscillator coupled with viscoelastic force is worked out in detail to illustrate the application of the mentioned method, and therewith the analytical solutions fit the numerical simulation results based on the original system. Therefore, the present analytical means of investigating this system is proved to be feasible. Additionally, the exploration of stochastic P-bifurcation by two different ways is also demonstrated in this paper through varying the value of the certain system parameters. Besides, it shows a noteworthy fact that assigning zero or a positive value to the magnitude of viscoelastic force can also lead to the bimodal shape of different degrees in the process of stochastic bifurcations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a multihop coherent orthogonal frequency division multiplexing free space optical (OFDM-FSO) communication system model based on a relay transmission mode of decode and forward (DF) with the Gamma-Gamma channel. In the study of atmospheric statistical model, mainly considering the combined action by the following three aspects, they are the light intensity scintillation caused by the atmospheric turbulence, the pointing error caused the transmitter and the receiver without aiming at each other and the path loss. We derived closed-form expressions of outage probability and symbol error rate of the multihop coherent OFDM-FSO system with serial DF relay transmission. We simulated and analyzed the influence of the atmospheric turbulence, the modulation order, the beam width and the jitter factor on the communication interruption performance and bit error performance of the multihop coherent OFDM-FSO system with different number of hops. ©2015 Optical Society of America [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure and dynamics of insect community in grasslands can be influenced by grazing management via altered characteristics of plant community. However, attempts to better understand the complex relationships among plants, insects, and large herbivores is still hampered largely by the interactive effects of plants, insects, and large grazers on each other. In this study, we test the hypothesis that the effect of large herbivores on insect abundance is grazer species-specific and pre-grazing plant diversity-dependent using an experiment with manipulating four grazing treatments (i.e., control, cattle, goats, and sheep) at low, intermediate, and high plant diversity levels in a meadow steppe at northeast in China. We show that grazing significantly increased the abundance of the entire insect community. The abundance of each insect order responded differently to grazing treatments, with higher abundance of Orthoptera and Homoptera under sheep grazing, enhanced abundance of Coleoptera and Diptera under cattle grazing, and reduced Hemiptera abundance, but greater abundance of Lepidoptera under goats grazing. Thus different treatments profoundly changed insect taxonomic composition. The six most dominant species ( Euchorthippus unicolor , Aelia nasuta , Trigonotylus ruficornis , Curculionidae sp., Coccinula quatuordecimpustulata , and Cicadellidae sp.) responded differently to grazing by large herbivores, with either increased or decreased its abundance. The effects of grazing on insect abundance were driven by their differential responsive mechanisms for vegetation. More importantly, the effects of grazing on insect abundance at both order- and species-levels potentially depended on plant diversity levels of pre-grazing. Our results suggest that different herbivore species should be used in the background of different plant communities for better conservation of insect community in managed grassland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study first examined the spatial distribution of dissolved cadmium (Cd) along with other hydrochemical parameters in a large subtropical river estuary system (the Jiulong River–Estuary, China) between 2008 and 2010, aiming to evaluate the impacts of the recently increasing anthropogenic perturbation in natural waters. The results showed that dissolved Cd was variable in the watershed with sporadically high concentrations (>0.6 nmol L −1 ). The significantly positive correlation of dissolved Cd with phosphate in the watershed (May 2008: dissolved Cd=0.22*P+0.0062, r =0.64, p <0.05) indicated that dissolved Cd levels have been elevated along with P by the increasing agricultural discharges and/or sewage effluents. The estuary was characterized with decreased levels of dissolved Cd in the highly turbid upper part (salinity: <5; dissolved Cd: <0.1 nmol L −1 ; Total Suspended Matter: 100–300 mg/L), and a mid-salinity maximum of dissolved Cd in the middle part, which were higher in Summer high river discharge period (0.40-0.54 nmol L −1 ) than in Fall low river discharge period (0.25–0.35 nmol L −1 ). Dissolved Cd generally decreased outwards in the lower estuary and nearby coastal waters as mixed with the low Cd-content seawater offshore (dissolved Cd= −0.025*Salinity+0.96, r =0.60, p <0.05). In particular, an enhancement of dissolved Cd (by ~0.2 nmol L −1 ) was observed in the lower estuary and estuarine plume zone as a result of sewage discharges nearby and/or Cd-enriched submarine groundwater discharges. Summarily, our exemplary study provides clear evidence that China's natural waters are currently subject to local perturbation due to the recently increasing anthropogenic activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiplicity control is an important statistical issue in clinical trials where strong control of the type I error rate is required. Many multiple testing methods have been proposed and applied to address multiplicity issues in clinical trials. This paper provides an application oriented and comprehensive overview of commonly used multiple testing procedures and recent developments in statistical methodology in multiple testing in clinical trials. Commonly used multiple testing procedures are applied to test non-hierarchical hypotheses and gatekeeping procedures can be used to test hierarchically ordered hypotheses while controlling the overall type I error rate. The recently developed graphical approach has the flexibility to integrate hierarchical and non-hierarchical procedures into one framework. A graphical multiple testing procedure with “no-dead-end” provides an opportunity to fully recycle α across hypothesis families. Two hypothetical clinical trial examples are used to illustrate applications of these procedures. The advantages and disadvantages of the different procedures are briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions: How does long‐term, moderate‐intensity mowing affect plant community diversity, biomass, and composition in semi‐arid grasslands? And what are the underlying mechanisms that drive differences in plant community structure and functions between mowed and unmowed grasslands? Location: A semi‐arid grassland in Jilin Province, northeastern China. Methods: In a 30‐year experiment, we investigated long‐term effects of mowing on the grassland ecosystem in northeastern China by comparing plant community diversity, biomass, and composition between mowed and unmowed permanent plots across six grasslands. Results: Long‐term mowing did not affect plant species richness, but increased species evenness by 29%. Mowing had little effects on above‐ground (shoot) and below‐ground (root) biomass. The unchanged above‐ground biomass in the mowed areas was attributed to a trade‐off between biomass of grasses and forbs: mowing significantly increased forb biomass by 50%, but reduced grass biomass by 20% and the grass to forb biomass ratio by 46%. Mowing also reduced biomass of the dominant Leymus chinensis grass by 24% and litter biomass by 56%. Regression analyses indicated that the species evenness was negatively affected by L. chinensis biomass and litter biomass. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that, although long‐term moderate mowing has limited effects on plant species richness and plant biomass, such a managed strategy can greatly reduce the dominance of grass species and allow the growth of forb species, leading to a higher species evenness in the plant community. This win–win situation promotes forage production for farmers while increasing plant diversity for conservation, suggesting that current mowing tactics can be a sustainable management practice in this ecosystem. However, the continuous loss of plant litter because of mowing may have negative influences on soil nutrient availability in the long run. From this perspective, a short‐term halt in mowing or fertilization that allows plants and soil nutrients to recover could represent a more optimal protocol for management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving the catalytic activityof Pt-based bimetallic nanoparticles is a key challenge in the applicationof proton-exchange membrane fuel cells. Electrochemical dealloyingrepresents a powerful approach for tuning the surface structure andmorphology of these catalyst nanoparticles. We present a comprehensivestudy of using electrochemical dealloying methods to control the morphologyof ordered Cu3Pt/C intermetallic nanoparticles, which coulddramatically affect their electrocatalytic activity for the oxygenreduction reaction (ORR). Depending on the electrochemical dealloyingconditions, the nanoparticles with Pt-rich core–shell or porousstructures were formed. We further demonstrate that the core–shelland porous morphologies can be combined to achieve the highest ORRactivity. This strategy provides new guidelines for optimizing nanoparticlessynthesis and improving electrocatalytic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precipitation can be a key driver of ecosystem functioning in semi-arid and arid grasslands. Altered precipitation patterns had significant impacts on plant community dynamics, which in turn influenced the community composition and structure of higher trophic levels, especially insects, in grasslands., A field experiment was conducted by manipulating the amount of natural precipitation (control, +30% rainfall, and −30% rainfall) to examine the effects of altered precipitation patterns on insect diversity, abundance, and trophic structure in a meadow steppe over 3 years (2007-2009)., The results showed that the increased precipitation treatment significantly enhanced above-ground biomass of the entire plant community and particularly grasses, whereas the decreased precipitation treatment significantly reduced them. There were year-to-year changes in species richness, Shannon- Wiener index, and abundance of the whole insect community. Both increased and decreased precipitation caused declines in insect species richness and abundance owing to potentially complex vegetation-mediated effects and direct habitat effects. The abundance of each trophic guild in the insect community responded differently to altered precipitation patterns, with lower herbivore abundance and unchanged abundance of predators and parasitoids. Thus changes in precipitation may generate an insect community that is increasingly dominated by secondary consumers., The present results suggest that altered precipitation causes a declines in insect diversity and shifts in trophic structure, potentially influencing ecosystem functioning in grasslands. Additionally, the inter-annual variation in the insect community under altered precipitation highlights the importance of long-term experiments for drawing correct conclusions about the impacts of climate change on grassland ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the influence of positive interactions on plant and sessile communities has been well documented, surprisingly little is known about their role in structuring terrestrial animal communities. We evaluated beneficial interactions between two distantly related herbivore taxa, large vertebrate grazers (sheep) and smaller insect grazers (grasshoppers), using a set of field experiments in eastern Eurasian steppe of China. Grazing by large herbivores caused significantly higher grasshopper density, and this pattern persisted until the end of the experiment. Grasshoppers, in turn, increased the foraging time of larger herbivores, but such response occurred only during the peak of growing season (August). These reciprocal interactions were driven by differential herbivore foraging preferences for plant resources; namely, large herbivores preferred Artemisia forbs, whereas grasshoppers preferred Leymus grass. The enhancement of grasshopper density in areas grazed by large herbivores likely resulted from the selective consumption of Artemisia forbs by vertebrate grazers, which may potentially improve the host finding of grasshoppers. Likewise, grasshoppers appeared to benefit large herbivores by decreasing the cover and density of the dominant grass Leymus chinensis, which hampers large herbivores' access to palatable forbs. Moreover, we found that large herbivores grazing alone may significantly decrease plant diversity, yet grasshoppers appeared to mediate such negative effects when they grazed with large herbivores. Our results suggest that the positive, reciprocal interactions in terrestrial herbivore communities may be more prevalent and complex than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Sub-monolayer Sn(Ru or RuSn) decorated Pt/C nanoparticles was synthesized. [•] All decorated Pt/C showed enhanced electrocatalytic activities for CO, formaldehyde. [•] The Sn decorated Pt/C showed the highest electrocatalytic activity for formadehyde. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Human degenerative disc disease (DDD) is characterized by progressive loss of human nucleus pulposus (HNP) cells and extracellular matrix, in which the massive deposition are secreted by HNP cells. Cell therapy to supplement HNP cells to degenerated discs has been thought to be a promising strategy to treat DDD. However, obtaining a large quality of fully functional HNP cells has been severely hampered by limited proliferation capacity of HNP cells in vitro. Previous studies have used lipofectamine or recombinant adeno-associated viral (rAAV) vectors to deliver human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) into ovine or HNP cells to prolong the activity of nucleus pulposus cells with limited success. Here we developed a lentiviral vector bearing both hTERT and a gene encoding green fluorescence protein (L-hTERT/EGFP). This vector efficiently mediated both hTERT and EGFP into freshly isolated HNP cells. The expressions of both transgenes in L-hTERT/EGFP transduced HNP cells were detected up to day 210 post viral infection, which was twice as long as rAAV vector did. Furthermore, we observed restored telomerase activity, maintained telomere length, delayed cell senescence, and increased cell proliferation rate in those L-hTERT/EGFP transduced HNP cells. Our study suggests that lentiviral vector might be a useful gene delivery vehicle for HNP cell therapy to treat DDD. © 2013 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 32:159-166, 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enhance and optimize nanocatalyst performance and durability for the oxygen reduction reaction in fuel-cell applications, we look beyond Pt-metal disordered alloys and describe a new class of Pt-Co nanocatalysts composed of ordered Pt3Co intermetallic cores with a 2-3 atomic-layer-thick platinum shell. These nanocatalysts exhibited over 200% increase in mass activity and over 300% increase in specific activity when compared with the disordered Pt3Co alloy nanoparticles as well as Pt/C. So far, this mass activity for the oxygen reduction reaction is the highest among the Pt-Co systems reported in the literature under similar testing conditions. Stability tests showed a minimal loss of activity after 5,000 potential cycles and the ordered core-shell structure was maintained virtually intact, as established by atomic-scale elemental mapping. The high activity and stability are attributed to the Pt-rich shell and the stable intermetallic Pt3Co core arrangement. These ordered nanoparticles provide a new direction for catalyst performance optimization for next-generation fuel cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study for the first time examined dissolved metals (Cu, Cd, and Mn) together with dissolved oxygen and carbonate system in the whole Pearl River Estuary system, from the upper rivers to the groundwater discharges until the estuarine zone, and explored their potential impacts in the adjacent northern South China Sea (SCS) during May–August 2009. This river-groundwater-estuary system was generally characterized by low dissolved metal levels as a whole, whilst subject to severe perturbations locally. In particular, higher dissolved Cu and Cd occurred in the North River (as high as 60nmol/L of Cu and 0.99nmol/L of Cd), as a result of an anthropogenic source from mining activities there. Dissolved Cu levels were elevated in the upper estuary near the city of Guangzhou (Cu: ∼40nmol/L), which could be attributable to sewage and industrial effluent discharges there. Elevated dissolved metal levels (Cu: ∼20–40nmol/L; Cd: ∼0.2–0.8nmol/L) also occurred in the groundwaters and parts of the middle and lower estuaries, which could be attributable to a series of geochemical reactions, e.g., chloride-induced desorption from the suspended sediments, oxidation of metal sulfides, and the partial dissolution of minerals. The high river discharge during our sampling period (May–August 2009) significantly diluted anthropogenic signals in the estuarine mixing zone. Of particular note was the high river discharge (which may reach 18.5 times as high as in the dry season) that transported anthropogenic signals (as indicated by dissolved Cu and Cd) into the adjacent shelf waters of the northern SCS, and might have led to the usually high phytoplankton productivity there (chlorophyll-a value >10μg/L). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]