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In this paper, CoFe2 O4/biomass carbon composts were prepared by one-pot hydrothermal and high- temperature calcination methods. The microscopic morphology, crystal structure and electromagnetic parame¬ters of the material indicate that CoF2 O4can be uniformly dispersed in the carbon base, and the presence of CoFe2 O4 is conducive to the defective polarization of the biomass during the carbonization process, which is ben racial to the enhancement of the wave absorption properties of the material. Effective regulation of the electro¬magnetic parameters of the composite material by adjusting the content of CoFe2 O4 to optimize tots impedance match mg performance. Experimental results show that the minimum reflection loss (reflection loss, RL) value of-48.0 dB and effective absorption bandwidth (effective absorption bandwidth, EAB) of 5.5 GHz were ob. turned at 2.0 mm thickness of Co2 O4O4/C-3.0 composite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not only does Singapore have a unique ethnic and multilingual makeup, it also boasts unique language policies, especially with regard to the learning of the official languages. Previous studies of Singaporean youths have largely focused on the differences in attitudes and code-switching between linguistic varieties (e.g. Colloquial Singapore English [Singlish] and Standard Singapore English) as well as looking at the specific languages of Singapore's multilingual community. This paper seeks to examine how Chinese-Singaporean youths differ in their perception of the benefits (general, communicative, cognitive and pragmatic) and disadvantages associated with Mandarin-English bilingualism and their Chinese-Singaporean identity. 165 Chinese-English bilingual youths from secondary schools, Polytechnics/Junior Colleges, University undergraduates and young working adults were stratified based their gender, socio-economic status and self-rated language proficiency. Our findings suggest that bilinguals' self-rated proficiency is generally the best indicator of local Chinese youths' attitudes towards Chinese-English bilingualism and identity, regardless of their current occupation, gender or socio-economic status.

Graphite matrix/copper composites have found significant potential uses in numerous areas. Until now, a high ambient gas pressure has to be applied to overcome the non-wettability between the copper melt and graphite matrix, which has restricted the technological and economic efficiencies, as well as the composite performance. In this paper, we have proposed a pressureless infiltration strategy to realize the preparation of highly conductive graphite matrix/copper composites. A tungsten carbide network is first in situ constructed in the graphite matrix, transforming the capillary force from the resistance mode to the impetus mode. Results show that the contact angle of graphite/copper decreased from 138.5° to 23° due to the constructed tungsten carbide network. The composites exhibit good interfacial bonding, and the electrical conductivity reaches 15.1 × 105 S/m, far higher than the requirement of the industry standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semi-automatic extraction of roads is greatly needed to accelerate the acquisition and updating of road maps. However, road surfaces are frequently disturbed on very high spatial resolution (VHSR) remotely sensed satellite imagery, which bothers the road trackers using least-squares-based template matching. This paper presents a novel semi-automatic framework for road tracking from VHSR satellite imagery. First, a human operator inputs three seed points. Second, the computer automatically tracks the road by the template matching using Kullback–Leibler divergence as a similarity measure. At the same time, a human operator is retained in the tracking process to supervise the extracted results, to response to the program's prompts. Once the failure or error happens, the human operator will correct the results and restart the automatic tracking. The above procedure is repeated until a whole road is tracked. Four satellite images with different complexities are used to perform experiments. The results show that our proposed road trackers is capable of automatically, accurately and fast extracting the long and high-level roads from the VHSR satellite images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between executive functions (EF) and bilingualism has dominated debate in the field. This debate was characterised by optimism for a bilingual advantage until the last decade, when a steady stream of articles reported failure to find a consistently positive effect for bilingualism. In addition to addressing concerns about study quality, this turn of events has spurred research into other variables that may explain the conflicting findings. While recent studies have focused on sociodemographic variables and interactional contexts such as age, code-switching frequency, and socioeconomic class to account for various group and individual differences, the impact of culture is seldom scrutinised. This paper examines the possible effect of culture among bilingual studies on EF by first contextualising how bilingual EF are studied and outlining the absence of culture as a macro variable, followed by a discussion on how culture and language are often conflated. This paper directs attention to the small but emerging research that tracks the importance of culture as a separate variable from language. This review discusses why macro culture and individual monoculturalism or biculturalism need to be carefully elucidated as a factor that can interact with the bilingual experience in shaping EF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how bicultural switching could influence cognitive performance on Executive Functions tasks among bicultural-bilinguals.Study 1 (n = 233) integrates self-report questionnaire data on cultural and language behaviour with a priming experiment, providing empirical evidence of young adult bilinguals’ ability to shift between multiple cultures.Study 2 (n = 48) explores the effect of cultural switching frequency on young adult bicultural bilinguals’ performance on tests for interference and inhibition control, set-shifting ability, and attention.Study 1: A repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to determine the effect of different primes on participant’s ratings. We ran a two-way mixed ANOVA to ascertain the effect of interlocutors (Grandparents/relatives, Parents, Siblings, Peers/co-workers, Social media) on behaviour (Cultural, Language). Study 2: A one-way ANOVA was conducted on Simon, Flanker, and Wisconsin Card Sort tasks (WCST). Each of the three attention network components was analysed using a 2 (trial-type, within-subjects) × 2 (Switching Group, between-groups) mixed-ANOVA for the Attention Network task.Study 1: Participants who alternate frequently between cultural frames made a clearer distinction between Western primes than those who switched between cultural frames less, suggesting that the frequency of cultural switching could impact cognition. Study 2: Bicultural bilinguals who switched between cultural frames frequently resolved stimulus-response conflict significantly faster in the Flanker task, made fewer mistakes within each sorting block in the WCST, and had a smaller conflict effect compared to infrequent switchers in the Attention Network Task.This study examines the effects of bicultural switching on Executive Functions of highly proficient bicultural bilinguals, highlighting it as a potential confound in bilingual research. Bicultural switching effects on interference and inhibition-control persist even in participants at the developmental peak of their cognitive processing capabilities after controlling for a plethora of socio-linguistic variables. Our research highlights how this understudied aspect of multiculturalism may have broad implications for bilingual research in Executive Functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS) applications, filtering is a necessary step. In this paper, a segmentation-based filtering method is proposed for MLS point cloud, where a segment rather than an individual point is the basic processing unit. In particular, the MLS point clouds in some blocks are clustered into segments by a surface growing algorithm, and then the object segments are detected and removed. A segment-based filtering method is employed to detect the ground segments. The experiment in this paper uses two MLS point cloud datasets to evaluate the proposed method. Experiments indicate that, compared with the classic progressive TIN (Triangulated Irregular Network) densification algorithm, the proposed method is capable of reducing the omission error, the commission error and total error by 3.62%, 7.87% and 5.54% on average, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a method for creating orthoimage in the urban area of extremely high buildings. The proposed method in this paper is different from the traditional methods, which improved the accuracy by increasing the number and/or improved the geometric distribution of ground control points. This proposed method first established a mathematical model of constraint condition on the building edges, such as perpendicularity, and then the established constraint conditions are merged into the orthorectification model. A test field located in downtown of Denver, CO, has been used to evaluate our methods. The experiments of comparing the accuracy achieved by our method and other methods are conducted. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method can improve the accuracy of 2-5 ft for those buildings of over 100 m high and even 5-7 ft for those buildings over 100 m high in the margin of imagery. Index Terms--Image orientation analysis, image registration, orthogonal functions, rectifiers.

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

Most studies regarding the relationship between multilingualism and cognitive control reduce linguistic diversity to a dichotomous comparison, viz., monolinguals vs. bilinguals, failing to capture the multifactorial nature of multilingualism. Language research is largely restricted to the Global North, albeit most of the world's population resides in the Global South, limiting the interpretability of the existing literature. Cognitive performance is assessed using very few tasks, yielding unreliable measurements. In this study, we identify the manner in which multilingual experiences influence cognitive performance in diverse sociolinguistic contexts. Young adults from the UK (n = 51, mean age = 24.0, SD = 3.18) and Singapore (n = 36, mean age = 21.3, SD = 2.15) were tested using an extensive battery of cognitive tasks, including cognitive flexibility (CF), working memory (WM), inhibition, and structure learning (SL). Information on language proficiency, use, age of acquisition, and frequency of switching was collected. The effects of various linguistic factors on the cognitive performance of each group were assessed using multiple linear regression models. The UK and Singapore samples exhibited significantly different linguistic profiles, which in turn dissimilarly influenced their cognitive performance. Our study underscores the necessity for more research in the Global South, challenging the prevailing Northern-centric focus on the multilingualism–cognition relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zero-Shot Learning (ZSL) is an extreme form of transfer learning that aims at learning from a few "seen classes" to have an understanding about the "unseen classes" in the wild. Given a dataset in ZSL research, most existing works use a predetermined, disjoint set of seen-unseen classes to evaluate their methods. These seen (training) classes might be sub-optimal for ZSL methods to appreciate the diversity and rarity of an object domain. Inspired by strategies like active learning, it is intuitive that intelligently selecting the training classes can improve ZSL performance. In this work, we propose a framework called Diverse and Rare Class Identifier (DiRaC-I) which, given an attribute-based dataset, can intelligently yield the most suitable "seen classes" for training ZSL models. DiRaC-I has two main goals -- constructing a diversified set of seed classes, and using them to initialize a visual-semantic mining algorithm for acquiring the classes capturing both diversity and rarity in the object domain adequately. These classes can then be used as "seen classes" to train ZSL models for image classification. We simulate a real-world scenario where visual samples of novel object classes in the wild are available to neither DiRaC-I nor the ZSL models during training and conducted extensive experiments on two benchmark data sets for zero-shot image classification -- CUB and SUN. Our results demonstrate DiRaC-I helps ZSL models to achieve significant classification accuracy improvements -- specifically, up to 8% for CUB and up to 5% for SUN dataset. Additionally, while recognizing classes exhibiting rare attributes we also observe a performance boost for ZSL models, which is up to 10% and 7% for CUB and SUN datasets, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During surgery for foci-related epilepsy, neurosurgeons face significant difficulties in identifying and resecting MRI-negative or deep-seated epileptic foci. Here, we present a neuro-robotic navigation system that is specifically designed for resection of MRI negative epileptic foci. We recruited 52 epileptic patients, and randomly assigned them to treatment group with either neuro-robotic navigation or conventional neuronavigation system. For each patient, in the neuro-robotic navigation group, we integrated multimodality imaging including MRI and PET-CT into the robotic workstation and marked the boundary of foci from the fused image. During surgery, this boundary was delineated by the robotic laser device with high accuracy, guiding resection for the surgeon. For deeply seated foci, we exploited the neuro-robotic navigation system to localize the deepest point with biopsy needle insertion and methylene dye application to locate the boundary of the foci. Our results show that, compared with the conventional neuronavigation, the neuro-robotic navigation system performs equally well in MRI positive epilepsy patients (ENGEL I ratio: 71.4% vs 100%, p = 0.255) systems and show better performance in patients with MRI-negative focal cortical dysplasia (ENGEL I ratio: 88.2% vs 50%, p = 0.0439). At present, there are no documented neurosurgery robots with similar function and application in the field of epilepsy. Our research highlights the added value of using neuro-robotic navigation systems in resection surgery for epilepsy, particularly in cases that involve MRI-negative or deep-seated epileptic foci. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

A substantial number of studies have been completed with respect to the use of English and social solidarity in broader contexts of cross-cultural communications including tourist–host interactions in tourism settings, but little, if any, is understood about the use of English and solidarity in hectic and tightly scheduled international airport settings. This study fills the gap by explicating how English is used by Tourist Information Center (TIC) staffs and incoming tourists at Lombok International Airport (LIA), Lombok, Indonesia, to contextually symbolize solidarity among them. Data were collected in more than a year of intensive participant and non-participant ethnographic observations of real-time interactions at the TIC in the LIA. Recordings, introspective, retrospective, and prospective interviews with the staff and the tourist respondents, as well as note takings of the contexts and the situations of communicative events, were the main means of data collection, and these data were analyzed using integration of sociological analyses of solidarity and ethnographic analyses of communicative interactions. The study elucidates ideological views on the service and explicates how speech accommodation, style convergence, code switching, and kinship terms have been employed as strategies for creating symbolic solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Janus Kinase 3 (JAK3) plays a key role in the development, proliferation, and differentiation of various immune cells. It regulates gene expression by phosphorylation of Signal Transducers and Activators of Transcriptions (STATs) via the JAK/STAT pathway. Recently, we found a new JAK3 phosphorylation site, tyrosine 841 (Y841). The results showed that pY841 helps the kinase domain flip around the pseudo kinase domain, which may cause JAK3 conformational changes. It also reduces the size of the cleft between the N-lobe and the C-lobe of the JAK3 kinase domain. However, pY841 was found to enlarge the cleft when ATP/ADP was bound to the kinase. The increase in the cleft size suggested that pY841 enhanced the elasticity of the kinase domain. For unphosphorylated JAK3 (JAK3-Y841), the binding forces between the kinase domain and ATP or ADP were similar. After phosphorylation of Y841, JAK3-pY841 exhibited more salt bridges and hydrogen bonds between ATP and the kinase than between ADP and the kinase. Consequently, the electrostatic binding force between ATP and the kinase was higher than that between ADP and the kinase. The result was that compared to ADP, ATP was more attractive to JAK3 when Y841 was phosphorylated. Therefore, JAK3-pY841 tended to bind ATP rather than ADP. This work provides new insights into the role of phosphorylation in kinase activation and ATP hydrolysis and sheds light on the importance of understanding the molecular mechanisms that regulate the kinase function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterojunction materials are promising candidates for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts to break the linear scaling relationship and lower the reaction barrier. However, the application of heterojunction materials is always hindered by the complicated multistep synthetic procedures which bring cost, complexity, and reproducibility issues. Herein, a strategy of kinetic controlled synthesis is developed to achieve the one‐pot formation of bimetallic metal‐organic framework (MOF)/layered double hydroxide (LDH) heterojunction electrodes as highly efficient OER electrocatalysts. The heterojunction electrodes present hierarchical structures with highly porous NiFe‐LDH nanosheet networks vertically grown on the surface of NiFe‐MOF‐74 microprisms, promoting fast mass transport and high exposure of active sites. The strong interactions at the MOF/LDH heterojunction interfaces contribute to the outstanding OER activity surpassing the state‐of‐art RuO2 OER catalysts. The MOF/LDH heterojunction electrode exhibits an ultralow overpotential of only 159.7 mV to reach the current density of 10 mA cm−2, and yields large current densities at small overpotential (100 mA cm−2 at 230.2 mV and 1000 mA cm−2 at 284.3 mV) with long‐term durability. This study presents an innovative approach to construct heterojunction materials with simple one‐step synthesis, offering a promising pathway for high‐efficiency electrocatalyst development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

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

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

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

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

Dengue virus causes serious diseases and deaths in the world. Understanding the fundamental mechanisms of dengue virus is highly demanded to develop treatments for dengue virus caused diseases. Here, we present a computational work which focused on the stability of dengue viral capsid. The interactions among E proteins on the dengue viral capsid were studied using several computational approaches. It was found that the electrostatic distribution on a single E protein monomer is highly inhomogeneous, which makes an E protein strongly binding with another E protein. This is the reason why all the E proteins form homodimers as the basic units on the whole dengue viral capsids. The pKa calculations of E proteins demonstrated that the folding energy of an E protein is low and stable in the range of pH 6–10, which is different from many other proteins that are stable at certain pH. The pH dependence of binding energy of E protein homodimer shows that the binding energy is low and independent from pH when the pH is also in the range of 6–10. This finding implies that the dengue virus can survive in a wide range of pH, which can explain why the dengue virus is so widely distributed in the world and spreads fast. Understanding the fundamental mechanisms of dengue virus is highly demanded to develop treatments for dengue virus caused diseases. Here we present a computational work which focused on the stability of dengue viral capsid. This work found that the E proteins of dengue virus can survive in a wide range of pH, which can explain why the dengue virus is so widely distributed in the world and spreads fast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since independence in 1965, the Singapore government has established a strongly mandated education policy with an English-first and official mother tongue Mandarin-second bilingualism. A majority of local-born Chinese have inclined toward a Western rather than Chinese identity, with some scholars regarding English as Singapore's "new mother tongue." Other research has found a more local identity built on Singlish, a localized form of English which adopts expressions from the ethnic mother tongues. However, a re-emergent China and new waves of mainland migrants over the past two decades seem to have strengthened Chinese language ideologies in the nation's linguistic space. This article revisits the intriguing relationships between language and identity through a case study of Chineseness among young ethnic Chinese Singaporeans. Guided by a theory of identity and investment and founded on survey data, it investigates the Chinese language ideologies of university students and their agency in choosing for themselves a Chinese imagined identity and community. Our survey found that ethnic Chinese Singaporean university students still possess a strong affinity for Mandarin and a desire to develop this aspect of their identity, in the context of Singapore's multiracial national identity. There exists a high propensity for imagined futures in Chineseness, with a majority of survey respondents who claimed English-speaking and bilingual identities also expressing the desire to become more bilingual and more Mandarin-speaking. This paper also deciphers the external and internal factors contributing to this development and suggests some areas of future research. 摘要: 自1965 年独立建国以来，新加坡政府就明确了以英语为第一语言、以华语为母语的双语教育政策。本地华人也更倾向于西方文化，而非自身的华人身份，这使得一些学者认为英语才是新加坡的"新母语"。另外一些研究则发现基于一种通用于新加坡本地并融入更多各种族母语元素的英语形式，即所谓的新加坡式英文，并进而建立更为本土化的认同。然而，随着过去二十年中国的重新崛起以及新一波新移民浪潮的到来，在新加坡的国家语言空间中，华语意识形态似乎得到了强化。本文以年轻一代新加坡华人的华人性体现为个案，以身份认同及语言投资理论为指针，通过问卷调查，探讨大学生的华语意识形态，以及他们在构想华人身份认同及所属社群时所选择的媒介，并重新审视语言与身份认同之间的微妙关系。本文的调查问卷发现，在新加坡多元种族国家认同背景下，受访的华族大学生对华语仍然具有浓厚的亲近力，并希望将这一元素作为其身份认同的体现之一。大部分受访者认为自己以英语为主要沟通语言，但仍认同于双语使用者的身份，这显示出他们希望能够更多地使用华语及成为双语使用者。这表明该群体在憧憬未来时，对体现自身的华人性有很强烈的倾向。本文还进一步探讨促成这一新转向的外部及内部因素及其理论意涵，以期能对相关领域的未来研究提出一些思考方向。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

In this report, antifouling polyacrylonitrile (PAN) ultrafiltration membranes were prepared from blends of PAN/polyglycidyl methacrylate (PGMA) via phase inversion method followed by the grafting of natural amino acids through epoxy ring-opening reaction. The grafted PAN membranes possessed highly stable hydrophilic surfaces as a result of the grafting of amino acids, which was adequately demonstrated in attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR/FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and contact angle measurements. The results of tensile strength and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images further proved that the surface modification had little effect on their mechanical properties, surface, and cross-sectional morphologies. Meanwhile, remarkable resistance against bovine serum albumin (BSA) and lysozyme (Lyz) fouling was observed for the neutral amino acid-based PAN membranes due to the formation of zwitterionic hydration layer on the membrane surface, while PAN membranes grafted with charged amino acids were able to prohibit the approach of like charged proteins with reduced deposition and provide the driving force for oppositely charged protein adsorption. Furthermore, the ultrafiltration and antifouling performance of PAN membranes were investigated by BSA filtration experiments. Compared with the pristine PAN membrane, all the modified PAN membranes exhibited higher pure water flux, better flux recovery ratio, lower rejection, less total permeation resistance, and preferable stability, having potential applications in protein separation and purification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The late twentieth and early twenty-first century has witnessed the unfortunate plight of demolition or irreparable damage for thousands of historic streets across China as a result of urbanization and redevelopment. A core of committed practitioners, academics and enlightened local governments have begun to recognize the important historical legacy of these streets and are undertaking conservation and revitalization projects. In Suzhou, approximately 100 km west of Shanghai, Pingjiang Street/district is an historical urban area that has recently undergone sensitive conservation and become one of the 'must-see' places in the city. This paper presents a historical account of the development, demise and resurrection of the houses, streets and waterways of Pingjiang district. The area's long history can be broadly structured into two critical and dialectical phases: the period of growth and incremental change during the Imperial period, and the pressures for change and development during the twentieth century. The paper will compare the socio-cultural factors that have shaped the layout of houses, streets and waterways and thus the whole street/district during these contrasting periods. These periods of transition will be followed by a critical review and assessment of urban conservation and revitalization of the area under the banner of 'heritage'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diffuse and specular components of leaf reflection are both important to determine the leaf optical properties as well as to describe the leaf bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF). However, the specular component is usually ignored in practice in numerous canopy reflectance models that describe the interaction between solar light and vegetated scene components. To evaluate the impact of leaf-specular reflection on canopy bidirectional reflectance factor (BRF) characteristics, we introduce a leaf BRDF model into the radiosity-graphics combined model (RGM; a 3-D scene model) to calculate canopy BRFs with nondiffuse leaves. The modified RGM is validated by comparing simulated BRFs against in situ measured BRFs over real maize canopies. The results show that ignorance of leaf-specular reflection can result in up to 50% of relative error in the blue band (435.8 nm). A series of maize canopies with different leaf angle distributions (LADs) is reconstructed to investigate the effect of five major biophysical/geometrical parameters such as leaf area index, LAD, leaf surface property, view direction, and solar zenith angle on leaf-specular reflection contributions to the canopy BRF. It is demonstrated that increasing the incident solar zenith angle and decreasing the mean leaf angle impact the angular distribution of the canopy BRF more significantly than other factors. The cumulative hemispherical relative and absolute errors of canopy BRF caused by the leaf-specular reflection are often too large to be ignored, even for canopies with rough surface leaves. Moreover, the relative error of BRF in visible waveband shows that, in general, leaf-specular reflection has a large impact than that in near-infrared waveband. However, such impact can be sufficiently accounted for by even just consideration of the first-order leaf-specular reflection in canopy reflectance calculation, leading to a substantial improvement in simulation accuracy for most vegetation canopies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ecological restoration has been risen to a national strategic project for China and become an significant way to realize ecological civilization construction. As an important way to measure the effectiveness of ecological restoration engineering, the corresponding evaluation provides a reliable basis for ecological restoration decision-making and ecosystem management. Based on remote sensing technology with the advantages of short revisit time, large monitoring range, high spatial resolution, this paper proposes a remote sensing evaluation method of watershed ecological restoration effect, so as to monitor the implementation effect of ecological restoration engineering in the watershed and technically check whether the expected goals set before the restoration are achieved. The comprehensive ecological restoration engineering of Yongding River has been implemented since 2016, and it was the first focus of the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to make advances in ecology. In this paper, year 2015 and 2020 were selected as the before and the after the ecological restoration engineering of Yongding River. The research object was the riparian zone from Luopoling Reservoir to Daning Reservoir in Yongding River Watershed. After obtaining and processing remote sensing images, ZY-3 images were used to obtain land cover data by means of human-computer interactive interpretation, and Landsat images were used to retrieve NDVI data. Based on these data, the changes of the eight indicators of water resources, water ecology and ecological function in the study area were calculated to evaluate the ecological restoration engineering effect. The results showed that the study area has basically realized the maintenance of ecological water quantity, formed the ecological corridor of Yongding River, and effectively enhanced the ecological function and improved the water environment. By verifying the feasibility of remote sensing evaluation method, this paper could provide relevant decision makers and planners with an effective evaluation method for the ecological restoration engineering effect based on remote sensing data and technology. • Remote sensing images and land cover data were utilized to calculate the indicators before and after ecological restoration. • Ecological restoration engineering effect was evaluated from water resources, water environment and ecological function. • Based on the proposed method, the ecological restoration effect in the study area was proved to be satisfactory overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For China's brilliant ancient architecture, China needs to use modern information technology for the protection and development. First of all, the establishment of an ancient general component library system framework. Ancient building surveying and mapping, and then research the drawings as a starting point, the semantics of the ancient architectural drawings entity elements, dimensioning semantics, implied semantic description method of the schema information for related parameters. In turn, this parameter is known as the three dimensional structure of 3 d component libraries, so as to realize the rapid reconstruction of ancient building 3 d project model. At the same time, based on the clustering characteristics of planar point cloud data to streamline algorithm and basic voxel reverse projection reconstruction algorithm based on 3 d coordinates. Finally through a concrete building modeling practice prove that this method is effective, and can be more accurate, simple and convenient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has been threatening human health since the late 2019, and has a significant impact on human health and economy. Understanding SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses is important to develop effective treatments for COVID-19 and other coronavirus-caused diseases. In this work, we applied multi-scale computational approaches to study the electrostatic features of spike (S) proteins for SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2. From our results, we found that SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 have similar charge distributions and electrostatic features when binding with the human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2). Energy pH-dependence calculations revealed that the complex structures of hACE2 and the S proteins of SARS-CoV/SARS-CoV-2 are stable at pH values ranging from 7.5 to 9. Three independent 100 ns molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed using NAMD to investigate the hydrogen bonds between S proteins RBD and hACE2 RBD. From MD simulations, we found that SARS-CoV-2 forms 19 pairs (average of three simulations) of hydrogen bonds with high occupancy (>50%) to hACE2, compared to 16 pairs between SARS-CoV and hACE2. Additionally, SARS-CoV viruses prefer sticking to the same hydrogen bond pairs, while SARS-CoV-2 tends to have a larger range of selections on hydrogen bonds acceptors. We also labelled key residues involved in forming the top five hydrogen bonds that were found in all three independent 100 ns simulations. This identification is important to potential drug designs for COVID-19 treatments. Our work will shed the light on current and future coronavirus-caused diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]