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Aimed at sufficiently utilizing available data and prior distribution information, we introduce a data-driven Bayesian-type approach to solve multi-stage convex stochastic optimization, which can easily cope with the uncertainty about data process's distributions and their inter-stage dependence. To unravel the properties of the proposed multi-stage Bayesian expectation optimization (BEO) problem, we establish the consistency of optimal value functions and solutions. Two kinds of algorithms are designed for the numerical solution of single-stage and multi-stage BEO problems, respectively. A queuing system and a multi-stage inventory problem are adopted to numerically demonstrate the advantages and practicality of the new framework and corresponding solution methods, compared with the usual formulations and solution methods for stochastic optimization problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are a subset of T cells participating in a variety of diseases including mycoplasmal pneumonia, contagious ecthyma, and so on. The role of Tregs in goat contagious ecthyma is not completely understood due to the lack of species-specific antibodies. Here, we developed a combination of CD4 and CD25 fluorescence monoclonal antibodies (mAb) to recognize goat Tregs and assessed its utility in flow cytometry, immunofluorescence staining. Using immunofluorescence staining, we found that the frequency of Treg cells was positively correlated with the viral load during orf virus infection. These antibodies could serve as important tools to monitor Tregs during orf virus infection in goats. Key points: • A combination of fluorescent mAbs (C11 and D12) was prepared for the detection of goat Tregs. • C11 and D12 are effective in flow cytometry, immunofluorescence staining, and C11 has excellent species specificity. • The frequency of Treg cells was positively correlated with the viral load during orf virus infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Osteoarthritis (OA), a chronic degenerative disease characterized mainly by damage to the articular cartilage, is increasingly relevant to the pathological processes of senescence, apoptosis, autophagy, proliferation, and differentiation of chondrocytes. Clinical strategies for osteoarthritis can only improve symptoms and even along with side effects due to age, sex, disease, and other factors. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify new ideas and targets for current clinical treatment. The tumor suppressor gene p53, which has been identified as a potential target for tumor therapeutic intervention, is responsible for the direct induction of the pathological processes involved in OA modulation. Consequently, deciphering the characteristics of p53 in chondrocytes is essential for investigating OA pathogenesis due to p53 regulation in an array of signaling pathways. This review highlights the effects of p53 on senescence, apoptosis, and autophagy of chondrocytes and its role in the development of OA. It also elucidates the underlying mechanism of p53 regulation in OA, which may help provide a novel strategies for the clinical treatment of OA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sensitive immunochromatographic assay (ICA) using time-resolved fluorescence microspheres (TRFMs) coupled with an indirect-labeling mode was developed for simultaneously determining 22 kinds of β-lactams in milk samples. The TRFMs labeled anti-receptor monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) conjugated to penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) as ternary TRFMs-mAb-PBPs (TMP) nanoscaffolds provide excellent solubility, brightness, and stability. Thanks to the fact that they not only fully expose the binding sites of PBPs, thereby enhancing the biological affinity of PBPs towards the target, but also generated superb fluorescence signals, the versatile TMP manifested unique possibilities as efficient probes for ICA with remarkable enhancement in sensitivity in β-lactams screening. The results showed that the standard curves of the 22 varying β-lactams displayed linearity in their respective concentration ranges (R2 > 0.98), with the cutoff values of 1–100 ng/mL. The constructed TMP-ICA was successfully applied to the analysis of real milk, with consistent results compared with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS), providing an effective method for sensing β-lactams in food matrices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite remarkable success has been achieved by convolutional neural networks (CNNs) in no-reference image quality assessment (NR-IQA), there still exist many challenges in improving the performance of IQA for authentically distorted images. An important factor is that the insufficient annotated data limits the training of high-capacity CNNs to accommodate diverse distortions, complicated semantic structures and high-variance quality scores of these images. To address this problem, this paper proposes a hierarchical curriculum learning (HCL) framework for NR-IQA. The main idea of the proposed framework is to leverage the external data to learn the prior knowledge about IQA widely and progressively. Specifically, as a closely-related task with NR-IQA, image restoration is used as the first curriculum to learn the image quality related knowledge (i.e., semantic and distortion information) on massive distorted-reference image pairs. Then multiple lightweight subnetworks are designed to learn human scoring rules on multiple available synthetic IQA datasets independently, and a cross-dataset quality assessment correlation (CQAC) module is proposed to fully explore the similarities and diversities of different scoring rules. Finally, the whole model is fine-tuned on the target authentic IQA dataset to fuse the learned knowledge and adapt to the target data distribution. Experimental results show that our model achieves state-of-the-art performance on multiple standard authentic IQA datasets. Moreover, the generalization of our model is fully validated by the cross-dataset evaluation and the gMAD competition. In addition, extensive analyses prove that the proposed HCL framework is effective in improving the performance of our model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To effectively control CaCO3 scaling in oilfield-produced water, terpolymer scale inhibitor P(IA-AA-SHP) was synthesized by aqueous solution polymerization using itaconic acid (IA), acrylic acid (AA) and sodium hypophosphite (SHP) as raw materials and ammonium persulfate as an initiator. The optimal monomer ratio, initiator dosage, reaction temperature, and time for copolymer synthesis were determined by the controlled variable method. According to the static scale inhibition performance test method in the oilfield, the copolymer dose reached 95.8% inhibition efficiency of CaCO3 at 30 mg L−1. A study of the inhibitory efficiency of copolymer on the CaCO3 scale at different Ca2+ concentrations, CO32− concentrations, and temperatures was also carried out, and the excellent scale inhibition efficiency was maintained despite a change in the water quality conditions. The structure of copolymer P(IA-AA-SHP) was characterized by FTIR, UV, 1H-NMR, and 13C-NMR. Since the molecular weight (Mw) has a great influence on the scale inhibition performance, the relationship between the molecular weight of the polymer and the scale inhibition performance was discussed using gel permeation chromatography (GPC) to detect the molecular weight of the product. The copolymers were shown to have excellent thermal stability using thermogravimetric (TGA) analysis. The effect of copolymers on the morphological structure of CaCO3 crystals was analyzed by SEM and XRD, and the mechanism of scale inhibition was discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A interaction model between discrete dislocation emission and the grain boundary at the crack tip of microscale grain is described. When the dislocation emission condition is satisfied, dislocations will be emitted from the crack tip and will move along a slip plane to the grain boundary. Dislocations will pile at the grain boundary and create stress concentration. At this time dislocation penetration and crack nucleation at the grain boundary may occur. The distribution and penetration of dislocations at the crack tip will have a new effect on the crack. In this paper, different grain boundary angles and grain sizes are studied to find the relationship between dislocations and cracks. The results show that the main crack tends to propagate in large grain boundary angle and in small grain size crystalline materials. And wedge crack in the grain boundary tends to initiate with large grain boundary angle and in large grain size crystalline materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An unprecedented warm sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly event, namely, the Blob, occurred in the northeast Pacific during the winter (October–January) of 2013/2014, causing substantial economic and ecological impacts. Here, we explore the driving forces of the Blob from both atmospheric and oceanic perspectives and show that the Blob primarily resulted from weak wintertime cooling due to the reduced air-sea heat flux transfer from the ocean to the atmosphere and the reduced horizontal advection of cold water in the upper ocean. Both mechanisms were attributed to an anomalous high-pressure system over the study region. Specifically, the anomalous air-sea heat flux, which was dominated by turbulent heat flux anomalies, was mainly induced by the increased air temperature (i.e., with a contribution of approximately 70%) and the weakened wind speed associated with the high-pressure system. The reduced horizontal heat advection was mainly due to the weakened winds acting on the ocean temperature meridional gradient. Using a regional ocean numerical model with different experimental runs, we evaluated the contributions of air temperature and wind drivers to the Blob at both the surface and subsurface of the ocean. The Blob was absent when the model was forced by climatology-air-temperature. Both the SST and integrated ocean heat content (OHC, 0–150 m) decreased, and the mixed layer depth (MLD) was deeper than that in the control run forced by real atmospheric conditions. In the climatology-winds experiment, obvious warm anomalies still existed, which were similar to but weaker than the control run. The SST (OHC) and MLD values in the climatology-winds run were between those of the climatology-air-temperature run and the control run. Compared to former studies that attribute the formation of the Blob to an anomalous air-sea heat flux and horizontal advection mainly induced by reduced winds, our study demonstrates that anomalous warm air temperatures played a more important role in its formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dielectric elastomer (DE) has attracted significant attention due to its desired features, including large deformation, fast response, and high energy density. However, for a DE actuator (DEA) utilizing a snap-through deformation mode, most existing theoretical models fail to predict its deformation path. This paper develops a new finite element method (FEM) based on the three-parameter Gent-Gent model suitable for capturing strain-stiffening behaviors. The simulation results are verified by experiments, indicating that the FEM can accurately characterize the snap-through path of a DE. The method proposed in this paper provides theoretical guidance and inspiration for designing and applying DEs and bistable electroactive actuators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to reuse the propylene oxide sludge (POS). Propylene oxide sludge shell-aggregate (POSS-A) and propylene oxide sludge gradient shell-aggregate (POSGS-A) whose main hydrated phase is tobermorite were successfully manufactured by the hydrothermal synthesis of POS and silica materials under the condition of autoclaved (180 °C, 1.0 MPa) curing. Influences of pre-wetting time of coarse aggregate and pressure application mode on the different concretes were investigated. The experimental results show that the concrete with POSS-A as coarse aggregate (POSS-A concrete), the concrete with POS gradient shell-aggregate as coarse aggregate (POSGS-A concrete), sintered aggregate concrete and common concrete, all have excellent impermeability performance whatever the pre-wetting time of coarse aggregate is 0.5 h or 24 h, and the pre-wetting time of coarse aggregate has a negligible influence on the concrete. The influence degree of pressure application mode on the impermeability performance of the sintered aggregate concrete is the greatest among three kinds of concrete, which has a negligible influence on impermeability performance of the other concretes. POSGS-A can be used as a green building light aggregate in hydraulic concrete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South China Sea (SCS) is the largest semi-enclosed marginal sea in the western Pacific. The alternation of East Asian monsoon causes a significant seasonal pattern of chlorophyll, primary productivity, and export flux of sinking particles. However, the source and sink of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) pools with different bioavailability are less studied. Here we evaluated the seasonal production of DOC in labile, semi-labile and refractory forms using a coupled physical-biogeochemical model. This study aims to understand the dynamics and budgets of organic matters in the SCS. Model results show that the production of labile, semi-labile and refractory DOC is highly correlated with the net primary productivity (NPP) which is higher in winter and lower in summer, reflecting a dependence of DOC on the NPP. The seasonal variation in Pearl River discharge dominates the DOC production in the northern coastal region. In the northeast, the Kuroshio intrusion associated frontal system is attributed to cause high winter production. The DOC production in the southwest is controlled by both winter mixing and summer upwelling. The production of refractory DOC with the least bioavailability favors carbon sequestration. Its annual mean production is 1.8±0.5 mg C m−2 d−1, equivalent to 26% of the export flux of particulate organic carbon at 1000 m. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optical flow is widely used in human action recognition. However, the influence of complex background on optical flow often leads to low recognition efficiency. To deal with this issue, an optical flow-based physical feature-driven action recognition framework is proposed in this paper. We first calculate the original dense optical flow field. Then, for reducing computational burden, joint action relevance that can eliminate the pseudo-optical flow in complex background is developed. After that, a more state flow field is obtained by local spatial–temporal thermal diffusion processing. On this basis, we design a feature descriptor that takes the divergence, curl and gradient features of flow field into consideration. Finally, we adopt Fisher vector to encode descriptors for classification. Experimental on HMDB51, KTH and UCF101 datasets proves that actions in complex background can be recognized accurately by the proposed framework, which outperforms the already developed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human action recognition (HAR) is one of the most challenging tasks in the field of computer vision due to complex backgrounds and ambiguity action, etc. To tackle these issues, we propose a novel action recognition framework called Semantic Feature and High-order Physical Feature Fusion (SF-HPFF). Concretely, we first calculate attention pooling module with a low-rank approximation to remove the information of irrelevant complex backgrounds and thus capture the interested target motion region. On this basis, motion features based on the physical characteristics of flow field and semantic features based on word embedding are developed to distinguish ambiguity behaviors. These features are of low dimension and high discrimination, which help to reduce computation burden significantly while maintaining an excellent recognition performance. Finally, cascaded convolutional fusion network is adopted to fuse features and accomplish classification. Multiple experiment results validate that the proposed SF-HPFF outperforms the state-of-art action recognition methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Roughness-induced emission from ocean surfaces is one of the main issues that affects the retrieval accuracy of sea surface salinity remote sensing. In previous studies, the correction of roughness effect mainly depended on wind speeds retrieved from scatterometers or those provided by other means, which necessitates a high requirement for accuracy and synchronicity of wind-speed measurements. The aim of this study is to develop a novel roughness correction model of ocean emissivity for the salinity retrieval application. The combined active/passive observations of normalized radar cross-sections (NRCSs) and emissivities from ocean surfaces given by the L-band Aquarius/SAC-D mission, and the auxiliary wind directions collocated from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) dataset are used for model development. The model is validated against the observations and the Aquarius standard algorithms of roughness-induced emissivity correction. Comparisons between model computations and measurements indicate that the model has better accuracy in computing wind-induced brightness temperature in the upwind/downwind directions or for the surfaces with smaller NRCSs, which can be better than 0.3 K. However, for crosswind directions and larger NRCSs, the model accuracy is relatively low. A model using HH-polarized NRCSs yields better accuracy than that using VV-polarized ones. For a fair comparison to the Aquarius standard algorithms using wind speeds retrieved from multi-source data, the maximum likelihood estimation is employed to produce results combining our model calculations and those using other sources. Numerical simulations show that combined results basically have higher accuracy than the standard algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The late spring rainfall may account for 15% of the annual total rainfall, which is crucial to early planting in southeastern China. A better understanding of the precipitation variations in the late spring and its predictability not only greatly increase our knowledge of related mechanisms, but it also benefits society and the economy. Four models participating in the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) were selected to study their abilities to forecast the late spring rainfall over southeastern China and the major sources of heavy rainfall from the perspective of the sea surface temperature (SST) field. We found that the models have better abilities to forecast the heavy rainfall over the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River region (MLYZR) with only a 1-month lead time, but they failed for a 3-month lead time since the occurrence of the heavy rainfall was inconsistent with the observations. The observations indicate that the warm SST anomalies in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean are vital to the simultaneously heavy rainfall in the MLYZR in May, but an El Niño event is not a necessary condition for determining the heavy rainfall over the MLYZR. The heavy rainfall over the MLYZR in May is always accompanied by warming of the northeastern Indian Ocean and of the northeastern South China Sea (NSCS) from April to May in the models and observations, respectively. In the models, El Niño events may promote the warming processes over the northeastern Indian Ocean, which leads to heavy rainfall in the MLYZR. However, in the real world, El Niño events are not the main reason for the warming of the NSCS, and further research on the causes of this warming is still needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fruit of the perennial rosebush Rosa roxburghii were valued for their high levels of ascorbic acid, superoxide dismutase activity, and cancer preventing effects. The high cellulose and low pectin content of Rosa roxburghii fruit results in an undesirable fibrous texture and hence needs to be addressed. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying dietary fiber metabolism in this fruit. Here, we report that the contents of cellulose, pectin, and lignin were increased by shading treatments at the maturation stage of fruit development. Under 50% shading, the soluble pectin content increased by 16.39%, which may improve the fruit palatability. However, deeper shading of 100% caused the lignin content to increase by 28.86%, which conversely may lower fruit quality. Based on transcriptome analysis, we identified candidate genes involved in dietary fiber metabolism, including cellulose synthase (CesA) 1, 2, 3, and 5, â-1,4-xylosyltransferase (IRX), arabinosyltransferase (ARAD) 1 and 2, galacturonosyltransferase (GAUT), cellulolytic enzyme (Cx), and pectin methylesterase, in which CesA1, CesA2, CesA3, IRX, ARAD2, and GAUT3 significantly responded to shading and positively correlated with the content of their corresponding component. Furthermore, cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase was significantly regulated by shading treatment and positively correlated with increasing lignin concentration. These results may facilitate a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms of dietary fiber metabolism in R. roxburghii fruit under low light conditions and provide a framework for future crop improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical swine fever (CSF), caused by classical swine fever virus (CSFV), is a severe disease that causes huge economic losses in the swine industry worldwide. In China, CSF has been under control due to extensive vaccination since 1954. However, there are still sporadic CSF outbreaks in China. Here, we isolated 27 CSFV strains from three Chinese provinces (Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia) from 2011 to 2018. Phylogenetic analysis based on the full-length envelope glycoprotein E2 coding region revealed that 25 out of 27 CSFV isolates clustered within subgroups 2.1 and 2.2, while two strains from Gansu belonged to subgroup 1.1. The sequence identity among these 27 isolates varied from 79.3% to 99.8% (nucleotides) and from 83.1% to 99.7% (amino acids). Further analysis based on the E2 amino acid sequences showed that these new isolates have consistent amino acid substitutions, including R31K and N34S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Satellite remote sensing and numerical models are widely used to estimate large-scale variations in ocean carbon export, but the relationship between export efficiency (e-ratio) of sinking organic carbon out of the surface ocean and its drivers remains poorly understood, especially in the Southern Ocean. Here, we assess the effects of temperature and primary productivity on e-ratio by combining particulate organic carbon export flux from in situ measurements during 1997–2013, environmental parameters from satellite products, and outputs from ocean biogeochemical models in the Southern Ocean. Results show that "High Productivity Low E-ratio" (HPLE) is a common phenomenon in the Subantarctic Zone and the Polar Frontal Zone, but not the Antarctic Zone. The e-ratio shows little dependence on temperature below 6 °C. Our results support the hypothesis that the HPLE phenomenon is due to the large contribution of non-sinking organic carbon. Both temperature and ballast minerals play less important roles in controlling e-ratio than ecosystem structure at low temperatures. These findings suggest that non-sinking organic carbon, ecosystem structure, and region-specific parameterizations of e-ratio are key factors to quantify the carbon export in the Southern Ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of big data and cloud computing, more and more data owners store the data in cloud server. Considering privacy preserving, image data need to be encrypted before uploaded to the cloud, which will lead to inefficient image retrieval of ciphertext domain. Therefore, the challenge of encrypted image retrieval is how to improve the performance. Toward this goal, this paper proposes a privacy-preserving image retrieval method based on deep learning and adaptive weighted fusion. Firstly, extracting low-level feature EHD (edge histogram descriptor), BOW (bag of words) and high-level semantic feature of images. Secondly, reducing the dimension of 1024-dim high-level semantic feature by PCA (principal component analysis), and the three features were binarized. Then these types of features are adaptively fused. Finally, constructing a prefilter table for fusion features to improve search efficiency by locality sensitive hashing (LSH) algorithm. K-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm and logistic encryption method were used to protect the privacy of fused features and images, respectively. The experiments show that the proposed method can not only ensure image security but also improve the retrieval accuracy of encrypted image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South China Sea (SCS) is strongly influenced by the East Asian monsoon system with seasonal reversal. Measurements from a 7-year continuous sediment trap located in the central SCS showed a clear seasonal pattern. The particulate organic carbon (POC) export flux at the depth of 1200 m was considerably higher in monsoon seasons. The driving dynamics leading to this seasonal variability of POC export, however, remains inadequately understood. Here, a one-dimensional physical-biogeochemical coupled model was developed to simulate the temporal variability of a lower-trophic planktonic ecosystem. The modeled POC export flux compared reasonably well with the 7-year time series from moored sediment trap. Model results showed that the POC export flux at 1200 m is highly correlated with the 0–100 m integrated primary productivity and with the export flux at 100 m, implying that the seasonal variability of sediment trap data could be induced by changes in phytoplankton production and its vertical export. Further model analysis suggested that the annual mean export ratio (e-ratio) at 100 m and transfer efficiency at 1200 m in the central SCS were 0.19 and 0.07, respectively, which are lower than those in high latitudes. The winter monsoon favors not only surface carbon fixation but also export to the deep ocean. The heat flux is the dominant factor regulating the seasonal cycle of mixed layer depth, nutrient supply, and the growth of phytoplankton in this region. The wind-driven mixing can further facilitate upward nutrient transport to the surface and amplify the seasonal amplitude of the POC export flux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the Correntropy Induced Metric (CIM) as an alternative to the well-known mean square error (MSE) is employed in Chebyshev functional link artificial neural network (CFLANN) to deal with the noisy training data set and enhance the generalization performance. The MSE performs well under Gaussian noise but it is sensitive to large outliers. The CIM as a local similarity measure, however, can improve significantly the anti-noise ability of CFLANN. The convergence of the proposed algorithm, namely the CFLANN based on CIM (CFLANNCIM), has been analyzed. Simulation results on nonlinear channel identification show that CFLANNCIM can perform much better than the traditional CFLANN and multiple-layer perceptron (MLP) neural networks trained under MSE criterion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proportionate-type adaptive filtering (PtAF) algorithms have been successfully applied to sparse system identification. The major drawback of the traditional PtAF algorithms based on the mean square error (MSE) criterion show poor robustness in the presence of impulsive noises or abrupt changes because MSE is only valid and rational under Gaussian assumption. However, this assumption is not satisfied in most real-world applications. To improve its robustness under non-Gaussian environments, we incorporate the maximum correntropy criterion (MCC) into the update equation of the PtAF to develop proportionate MCC (PMCC) algorithm. The mean and mean square convergence performance analysis are also performed. Simulation results in sparse system identification and echo cancellation applications are presented, which demonstrate that the proposed PMCC exhibits outstanding performance under the impulsive noise environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, delivery delays due to a high probability of operational unit failure often occur in perishable manufacturing systems. This paper proposes a rescheduling algorithm known as complete rerouting (CR) for perishable manufacturing systems. The perishable characteristics of agri-products and the stochastic invalidity of operational units are researched. Products and operational units of the system are simulated by agents. In the developed virtual perishable manufacturing system, multiple product agents with different deadlines, values, and due dates search for the best processing route according to scheduling principles. When an operational unit fails stochastically, agents update their status and reroute their path using the rescheduling algorithm. The transition of agents can be described by the Petri net model proposed in this paper. Three basic experiments are investigated, validating the rescheduling algorithm proposed. This study demonstrates that the CR policy causes product agents to search for the best rerouting path compared to other rescheduling policies (i.e., right-shift scheduling and new-job rerouting). The optimal delivery times of products are determined based on penalty cost. Furthermore, this study analyzes the sensitivity of scheduling performance due to different product batches with two failed operational unit statuses (i.e., high frequency, short maintenance, and low frequency, long maintenance). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflected signals from global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) have been widely acknowledged as an important remote sensing tool for retrieving sea surface wind speeds. The power of GNSS reflectometry (GNSS-R) signals can be mapped in delay chips and Doppler frequency space to generate delay Doppler power maps (DDMs), whose characteristics are related to sea surface roughness and can be used to retrieve wind speeds. However, the bistatic radar cross section (BRCS), which is strongly related to the sea surface roughness, is extensively used in radar. Therefore, a bistatic radar cross section (BRCS) map with a modified BRCS equation in a GNSS-R application is introduced. On the BRCS map, three observables are proposed to represent the sea surface roughness to establish a relationship with the sea surface wind speed. Airborne Hurricane Dennis (2005) GNSS-R data are then used. More than 16 000 BRCS maps are generated to establish GMFs of the three observables. Finally, the proposed model and classic one-dimensional delay waveform (DW) matching methods are compared, and the proposed model demonstrates a better performance for the high wind speed retrievals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sparse adaptive filtering algorithms are utilized to exploit system sparsity as well as to mitigate interferences in many applications such as channel estimation and system identification. In order to improve the robustness of the sparse adaptive filtering, a novel adaptive filter is developed in this work by incorporating a correntropy-induced metric (CIM) constraint into the least logarithmic absolute difference (LLAD) algorithm. The CIM as an $$l_{0}$$ -norm approximation exerts a zero attraction, and hence, the LLAD algorithm performs well with robustness against impulsive noises. Numerical simulation results show that the proposed algorithm may achieve much better performance than other robust and sparse adaptive filtering algorithms such as the least mean p-power algorithm with $$l_{1}$$ -norm or reweighted $$l_{1}$$ -norm constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States of depression are considered to relate to a cognitive bias reactivity to emotional events. Moreover, gender effect may influence differences in emotional processing. The current study is to investigate whether there is an interaction of cognitive bias by gender on emotional processing in minor depression (MiD) and major depression (MaD). N170 component was obtained during a visual emotional oddball paradigm to manipulate the processing of emotional information in 33 MiD, 36 MaD, and 32 controls (CN). Compared with CN, in male, both MiD and MaD had lower N170 amplitudes for happy faces, but MaD had higher N170 amplitudes for sad faces; in female, both MiD and MaD had lower N170 amplitudes for happy and neutral faces, but higher N170 amplitudes for sad faces. Compared with MaD in male, MiD had higher N170 amplitudes for happy faces, lower N170 amplitudes for sad faces; in female, MiD only had higher N170 amplitudes for sad faces. Interestingly, a negative relationship was observed between N170 amplitude and the HDRS score for identification of happy faces in depressed patients while N170 amplitude was positively correlated with the HDRS score for sad faces identification. These results provide novel evidence for the mood-brightening effect with an interaction of cognitive bias by gender on emotional processing. It further suggests that female depression may be more vulnerable than male during emotional face processing with the unconscious negative cognitive bias and depressive syndromes may exist on a spectrum of severity on emotional face processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The least mean p-power (LMP) is one of the most popular adaptive filtering algorithms. With a proper p value, the LMP can outperform the traditional least mean square $$(p=2)$$ , especially under the impulsive noise environments. In sparse channel estimation, the unknown channel may have a sparse impulsive (or frequency) response. In this paper, our goal is to develop new LMP algorithms that can adapt to the underlying sparsity and achieve better performance in impulsive noise environments. Particularly, the correntropy induced metric (CIM) as an excellent approximator of the $$l_0$$ -norm can be used as a sparsity penalty term. The proposed sparsity-aware LMP algorithms include the $$l_1$$ -norm, reweighted $$l_1$$ -norm and CIM penalized LMP algorithms, which are denoted as ZALMP, RZALMP and CIMLMP respectively. The mean and mean square convergence of these algorithms are analysed. Simulation results show that the proposed new algorithms perform well in sparse channel estimation under impulsive noise environments. In particular, the CIMLMP with suitable kernel width will outperform other algorithms significantly due to the superiority of the CIM approximator for the $$l_0$$ -norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rainfall has two significant effects on the sea surface, including salinity decreasing and surface becoming rougher, which have further influence on L-band sea surface emissivity. Investigations using the Aquarius and TRMM 3B42 matchup dataset indicate that the retrieved sea surface salinity (SSS) is underestimated by the present Aquarius algorithm compared to numerical model outputs, especially in cases of a high rain rate. For example, the bias between satellite-observed SSS and numerical model SSS is approximately 2 when the rain rate is 25 mm/h. The bias can be eliminated by accounting for rain-induced roughness, which is usually modeled by rain-generated ring-wave spectrum. The rain spectrum will be input into the Small Slope Approximation (SSA) model for the simulation of sea surface emissivity influenced by rain. The comparison with theoretical model indicated that the empirical model of rain spectrumis more suitable to be used in the simulation. Further, the coefficients of the rain spectrum are modified by fitting the simulations with the observations of the 2-year Aquarius and TRMM matchup dataset. The calculations confirm that the sea surface emissivity increases with the wind speed and rain rate. The increase induced by the rain rate is rapid in the case of low rain rate and low wind speed. Finally, a modified model of sea surface emissivity including the rain spectrum is proposed and validated by using the matchup dataset in May 2014. Compared with observations, the bias of the rain-induced sea surface emissivity simulated by the modified modelis approximately 1e, and the RMSE is slightly larger than 1e. With using more matchup data, thebias between model retrieved sea surface salinities and observationsmay be further corrected, and the RMSE may be reduced to less than 1 in the cases of low rain rate and low wind speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The export flux of particulate organic carbon (POC) consumes upwelled dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), which hinders surplus CO being released to the atmosphere. The export flux of POC is therefore crucial to the carbon and biogeochemical cycles. This study aims to model the long-term (1958-2009) variation of export flux and structure of the biological pump in the South China Sea (SCS) using a three-dimensional physical-biogeochemical coupled (ROMS-CoSiNE) model. The modeled POC export flux in the northeastern and north central SCS is high in winter and low in summer, whereas the flux in the central, southwestern and southern SCS varies following a 'W' shape: two maxima in winter and summer, and two minima in spring and autumn. The pattern follows the variation of the East Asian monsoon and is consistent with observations. On the interannual scale, export flux is anti-phased with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation such that El Niño (La Niña) conditions correspond to low (high) export flux. Modeled annual mean POC export flux reaches up to 1.95 mmol m day, which is underestimated comparing with field observations. The f-ratio is estimated to be ~0.4. The b value of the Martin equation for POC is 1.18±0.03. Remineralization rate of POC is greater than the classical Martin equation but is consistent with its subtropical counterparts. The modeled results indicate that the SCS is a weak source of atmospheric CO with a flux estimated at 1.0 mmol m day. The modeled results provide an insight of the temporal and spatial variability of the carbon cycle in this monsoon-driven, semi-enclosed basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is a carbon reservoir that is as large as the atmospheric CO pool, and its contribution to the global carbon cycle is gaining attention. As DOC is a dissolved tracer, its distribution can serve to trace the mixing of water masses and the pathways of ocean circulation. Published proxy and model reconstructions have revealed that, during the last glacial maximum (LGM), the pattern of deep ocean circulation differed from that of the modern ocean, whereby additional carbon is assumed to have been sequestered in stratified LGM deep water. The aim of this study is to explore the distribution of DOC and its production/removal rate during the LGM using the Grid ENabled Integrated Earth system model (GENIE). Modeled results reveal that increased salinity of bottom waters in the Southern Ocean is associated with stronger stratification and oxygen depletion. The stratified LGM deep ocean traps more nutrients, resulting in a decrease in the DOC reservoir size that, in turn, causes a negative feedback for carbon sequestration. This finding requires an increase in DOC lifetime to compensate for the negative feedback. The upper limit of DOC lifetime is assumed to be 20,000 years. Modeled results derive an increase (decrease) in DOC reservoir by 100 Pg C leading to an atmospheric CO decrease (increase) of 9.1 ppm and a dissolved inorganic carbon δC increase (decrease) of 0.06‰. The DOC removal rate is estimated to be 39.5 Tg C year in the deep sea during the LGM. The contribution of DOC to the LGM carbon cycle elucidates potential carbon sink-increasing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An extended meshless method based on partition of unity was used in this study to simulate multiple cracks. The cracks are implicitly denoted by a jump in the displacement field function, which has nodes that have domains of influence completely segmented by cracks. Nodes whose domains of influence are partially segmented by cracks are extended by the crack tip singularity function. The influence domain of a node is independent of cracks so that the sparsity of the system equations should not be affected by cracks and the computing time should not increase with the effect of the cracks. Additionally, r−1/2 singularity can be accurately reproduced at the crack tip. Compared with the modified intrinsic enriched meshless method, our method has a higher computational efficiency and precision. Several numerical examples show that the extended meshless method based on partition of unity is feasible and effective in simulating multiple cracks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary productivity (PP) and phytoplankton structure play an important role in regulating oceanic carbon cycle. The unique seasonal circulation and upwelling pattern of the South China Sea (SCS) provide an ideal natural laboratory to study the response of nutrients and phytoplankton dynamics to climate variation. In this study, we used a three-dimensional (3D) physical-biogeochemical coupled model to simulate nutrients, phytoplankton biomass, PP, and functional groups in the SCS from 1958 to 2009. The modeled results showed that the annual mean carbon composition of small phytoplankton, diatoms, and coccolithophores was 33.7, 52.7, and 13.6 %, respectively. Diatoms showed a higher seasonal variability than small phytoplankton and coccolithophores. Diatoms were abundant during winter in most areas of the SCS except for the offshore of southeastern Vietnam, where diatom blooms occurred in both summer and winter. Higher values of small phytoplankton and coccolithophores occurred mostly in summer. Our modeled results indicated that the seasonal variability of PP was driven by the East Asian Monsoon. The northeast winter monsoon results in more nutrients in the offshore area of the northwestern Luzon Island and the Sunda Shelf, while the southwest summer monsoon drives coastal upwelling to bring sufficient nutrients to the offshore area of southeastern Vietnam. The modeled PP was correlated with El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) at the interannual scale. The positive phase of ENSO (El Niño conditions) corresponded to lower PP and the negative phase of ENSO (La Niña conditions) corresponded to higher PP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dongjing reservoir with storage capacity of 955 million m and 150 m dam height had been set up in Guizhou province, southeastern China on May in 2005. After filling with water in August 20, 2009, the reservoir-induced earthquake in 20 km took place first in September 2009 at the 440 m water level. When the water level changes, the number of earthquakes is increased rapidly. On January 17, 2010, the largest M 4.4 earthquake with depth of 7 km has happen and month frequency achieved 21 events at the highest water level. M 4.4 earthquake caused rock collapse with the disaster of killed six people and nine injure. After our investigation and study, the reason of higher epicentral intensity of earthquake was the surface effect of near-field elastic wave transmission. The disaster of rock falls certainly depended on the very very shallow earthquake, the height of valley and fault. Comparing as same magnitude of natural earthquake, very shallow earthquake increased 1-2° of epicentral intensity I, more than twice amplitude of S-wave at 200 m height of valley and the largest displacement on fault. The superposition of three factors has increased the epicentral intensity of earthquake and directly caused rock collapse with the disaster of killed six people and nine injure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-replication, an important concept abstracted from reproduction, the key feature of life, remains vague in definition and lacking in clear interpretation in terms of its chemical mechanism. Mentioned frequently in discussions concerning the essence of life and its origin, the vague concept has caused a lot of uncertain statements, confusable references, and malposed debates, and has seriously held back efforts in this field. In this article, we try to improve the situation by a conceptual analysis in a more fundamental and clearer background. Self-replication in the substantial world could not mean anything but that 'an entity favors the production of its own.' The major chemical mechanism for such favoring is catalysis, which can be classified into speed- and direction-favoring types (the template-directing function is actually a type of direction-favoring catalysis). Molecular self-replication could be based on autocatalysis or self-metabolism; the self-replication of a complex entity could be based on autocatalytic and/or self-metabolic sets, and should involve a mechanism of self-division. This conceptual clarification sheds light on the dim areas concerning the essence of life and its origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The equatorial Pacific underwent a significant climate transition during the late Pliocene, which is characterized by cooling of global sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and formation of a marked SST gradient between the eastern and western equatorial Pacific. Moreover, this transition was nearly synchronous with the late Pliocene Northern Hemisphere glaciation. Probing the relationship among solar insolation, low and high latitude processes is the key to unravel the mechanism of this climate transition. A series of statistical methods were used in this study to analyze the orbital components of the equatorial Pacific SST and global ice volume records for the past 5 Ma. We found that integrated solar insolation rather than the monthly mean insolation is the primary external forcing of the late Pliocene climate transition, and that on orbital time scale the SSTs of the eastern and western equatorial Pacific display consistent change rather than a "seesaw" pattern. Changes of Earth's orbital configuration have been responsible for this climate transition whereas the feedback effects of atmospheric CO2 concentration have further cooled the global climate since the early Cenozoic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The catalytic activity for methanol electro-oxidation on CoPc-Pt/C co-catalysts, prepared by impregnation method, was studied in details through electrochemical methods. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) result demonstrates that CoPc has higher forward anodic peak current density and jf / jb value (forward anodic peak current density/backward anodic peak current density) than Pt/C. Chronoamperometry (CA) analysis indicates that CoPc-Pt/C exhibits both excellent transient current density and stable current density for methanol electro-oxidation compared with Pt/C. Two main mechanisms related to the promotion of catalytic activity are as follows: CoPc-Pt/C has the activity of tolerance to carbonaceous intermediates, thus inhibiting the self-poisoning of catalysts; CoPc-Pt/C owns prominent intrinsic catalytic activity indicated by the apparent activation energy for methanol oxidation on CoPc-Pt/C, which is 18 kJ/mol, less than that on Pt and PtRu catalysts as reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After Wenchuan Ms8.O earthquake, the surface fractures have been investigated in Beichuan City and Yingxiu Town. It was found that the Beichuan-Yingxiu earthquake fracture zone trends northeastward, dipping to northwest. The earthquake fracture zone is mainly characterized by thrust faulting with small amounts of strike-slip movement, and demonstrating various complexities for different areas. The phenomena related to dextral strike-slip displacement are found in Beichuan City and those related to left-lateral strike-slip movement in Yingxiu Town. The compressive shortening of the two surface fracture zones in Beichuan City is 2.8-3.9 m and the left-lateral strike-slip displacement of the surface fractures in Yingxiu Town is 0.52 m. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthquake surface rupture is the result of transformation from crustal elastic strain accumulation to permanent tectonic deformation. The surface rupture zone produced by the 2001 Kunlunshan earthquake ( M w 7.8) on the Kusaihu segment of the Kunlun fault extends over 426 km. It consists of three relatively independent surface rupture sections: the western strike-slip section, the middle transtensional section and the eastern strike-slip section. Hence this implies that the Kunlunshan earthquake is composed of three earthquake rupturing events, i.e. the M w =6.8, M w =6.2 and M w ⩽=7.8 events, respectively. The M w =7.8 earthquake, along the eastern section, is the main shock of the Kunlunshan earthquake, further decomposed into four rupturing subevents. Field measurements indicate that the width of a single surface break on different sections ranges from several meters to 15 m, with a maximum value of less than 30 m. The width of the surface rupture zone that consists of en echelon breaks depends on its geometric structures, especially the stepover width of the secondary surface rupture zones in en echelon, displaying a basic feature of deformation localization. Consistency between the Quaternary geologic slip rate, the GPS-monitored strain rate and the localization of the surface ruptures of the 2001 Kunlunshan earthquake may indicate that the tectonic deformation between the Bayan Har block and Qilian-Qaidam block in the northern Tibetan Plateau is characterized by strike-slip faulting along the limited width of the Kunlun fault, while the blocks themselves on both sides of the Kunlun fault are characterized by block motion. The localization of earthquake surface rupture zone is of great significance to determine the width of the fault-surface-rupture hazard zone, along which direct destruction will be caused by co-seismic surface rupturing along a strike-slip fault, that should be considered before the major engineering project, residental buildings and life line construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is more and more evidence suggested the existence of an RNA World during the origin of life, the scenario concerning the origin of the RNA World remains blurry. Usually it is speculated that it originated from a prebiotic nucleotide pool, during which a self-replicating RNA synthesis ribozyme may have emerged as the first ribozyme – the RNA replicase. However, there is yet no ersuasive supposition for the mechanism for the self-favouring feature of the replicase, thus the speculation remains unconvincing. Here we suggest that intramolecular catalysis is a possible solution. Two RNA synthesis ribozymes may be integrated into one RNA molecule, as two functional domains which could catalyze the copy of each other. Thus the RNA molecule could self-replicate and be referred to as “intramolecular replicase“ here. Computational simulation to get insight into the dynamic mechanism of emergence of the intramolecular replicase from a nucleotide pool is valuable and would be included in a following work of our group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on technical processing of high-resolution SPOT images and aerophotos, detailed mapping of offset landforms in combination with field examination and displacement measurement, and dating of offset geomorphic surfaces by using carbon fourteen (14C), cosmogenic nuclides (10Be+26Al) and thermoluminescence (TL) methods, the Holocene sinistral slip rates on different segments of the Altyn Tagh Fault (ATF) are obtained. The slip rates reach 17.5±2 mm/a on the central and western segments west of Aksay Town, 11±3.5 mm/a on the Subei-Shibaocheng segment, 4.8±1.0 mm/a on the Sulehe segment and only 2.2±0.2 mm/a on the Kuantanshan segment, an easternmost segment of the ATF. The sudden change points for loss of sinistral slip rates are located at the Subei, Shibaocheng and Shulehe triple junctions where NW-trending active thrust faults splay from the ATF and propagate southeastward. Slip vector analyses indicate that the loss of the sinistral slip rates from west to east across a triple junction has structurally transformed into local crustal shortening perpendicular to the active thrust faults and strong uplifting of the thrust sheets to form the NW-trending Danghe Nanshan, Daxueshan and Qilianshan Ranges. Therefore, the eastward extrusion of the northern Qing-hai-ibetan Plateau is limited and this is in accord with “the imbricated thrusting transforma-tion-limited extrusion model” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the concept of “active blocks” and spatial distribution of historical earthquakes with surface ruptures as well as major and subordinate active faults. The Sichuan-Yunnan region can be divided into four first-order blocks. They are the Markam block (I), the Sichuan-Yunnan rhombic block (II), Baoshan-Pu’er block (III), and Mizhina-Ximeng block (IV). Cut by sub-ordinate NE-trending active faults, the Sichuan-Yunnan rhombic block (II) can be further divided into two sub-blocks: the northwestern Sichuan sub-block (ll1) and the middle Yunnan sub-block (ll2), while the Baoshan- Pu’er block (III) can be further divided into three sub-blocks: Baoshan sub-block (Ill1), Jinggu sub-block (lll2), and Mengla sub-block (lll3). A quantitative study of offset landforms is carried out and the basic types of active faults and their long-term slip rates along the major boundaries of active blocks of different orders in the Sichuan-Yunnan region are determined, through slip vector analysis, the motion states of the active blocks are clarified and the deformation coordination on the block margins is discussed. It is suggested that the tectonic motion of the blocks in this region is a complex or superimposition of three basic types of motions: southeastward sliding, ro-tating on vertical axis, and uplifting. The Markam block (I), the northwestern Sichuan sub-block (ll1), and middle Yunnan sub-block (ll2) have a southeastward horizontal sliding rate of 1-5 mm/a, clockwise rotating angular rate of 1.4-4°/Ma, and uplifting rate of about 1 mm/a. The Baoshan-Pu’er (III) and Mizhina-Ximeng (IV) blocks have also been extensively clockwise rotated. This pattern of motion is a strain response to the collision between the Indian and Eurasian plates and the localized deformation and differential slip on the block margins associated with the northward motion of the Indian Plate. Because a set of transverse thrusts between the blocks absorbs and transforms some components of eastward or southeastward sliding motion, the eastward escape or extrusion of the Tibetan Plateau is limited as “imbricated thrusting transformation-limited extrusion model”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highly accurate active contour models are widely used in various image segmentation methods. In this paper, we propose an image segmentation model based on Hellinger distance for local region intensity fitting (HD-LRIF). The method defines two different metrics based on the Hellinger distance and constructs a new data fitting term to segment the image efficiently by minimizing the energy function. In addition, our method is independent of the initial contour and the segmentation results consistently obtain high accuracy. The experimental results show that the HD-LRIF model is far superior to state-of-the-art segmentation methods in terms of accuracy and efficiency. Specifically, it can effectively filter the noise interference, thus enhancing robustness and improving the accuracy of image segmentation in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]