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Confining luminophores into modified hydrophilic matrices or polymers is a straightforward and widely used approach for afterglow bioimaging. However, the afterglow quantum yield and lifetime of the related material remain unsatisfactory, severely limiting the using effect especially for deep-tissue time-resolved imaging. This fact largely stems from the dilemma between material biocompatibility and the quenching effect of water environment. Herein an in situ metathesis promoted doping strategy is presented, namely, mixing approximate to 10-3 weight ratio of organic-emitter multicarboxylates with inorganic salt reactants, followed by metathesis reactions to prepare a series of hydrophilic but water-insoluble organic-inorganic doping afterglow materials. This strategy leads to the formation of edible long-afterglow photoluminescent materials with superior biocompatibility and excellent bioimaging effect. The phosphorescence quantum yield of the materials can reach dozens of percent (the highest case: 66.24%), together with the photoluminescent lifetime lasting for coupes of seconds. Specifically, a long-afterglow barium meal formed by coronene salt emitter and BaSO4 matrix is applied into animal experiments by gavage, and bright stomach afterglow imaging is observed by instruments or mobile phone after ceasing the photoexcitation with deep tissue penetration. This strategy allows a flexible dosage of the materials during bioimaging, facilitating the development of real-time probing and theranostic technology. A universal strategy is proposed to construct edible photoluminescent long-afterglow materials by embedding luminophore multicarboxylates into a series of inorganic salt lattices. Particularly, edible afterglow barium meal formed by coronene salt doped BaSO4 can be applied into gastrointestinal afterglow imaging captured by instruments or mobile phone. image, Funding Agencies|National Natural Science Foundation of China; [21975046]; [22275038]

Polymer dots (PDs) have raised considerable research interest due to their advantages of designable nanostructures, high biocompatibility, versatile photoluminescent properties, and recyclability as nanophase. However, there remains a lack of in situ, real-time, and noncontact methods for synthesizing PDs. Here we report a rational strategy to synthesize PDs through a well-designed single-component precursor (an asymmetrical donor-acceptor-donor molecular structure) by photoirradiation at ambient temperature. In contrast to thermal processes that normally lack atomic economy, our method is mild and successive, based on an aggregation-promoted sulfonimidization triggered by photoinduced delocalized intrinsic radical cations for polymerization, followed by photooxidation for termination with structural shaping to form PDs. This synthetic approach excludes any external additives, rendering a conversion rate of the precursor exceeding 99%. The prepared PDs, as a single entity, can realize the integration of nanocore luminescence and precursor-transferred luminescence, showing 41.5% of the total absolute luminescence quantum efficiency, which is higher than most reported PD cases. Based on these photoluminescent properties, together with the superior biocompatibility, a unique membrane microenvironmental biodetection could be exemplified. This strategy with programming control of the single precursor can serve as a significant step toward polymer nanomanufacturing with remote control, high-efficiency, precision, and real-time operability., Funding Agencies|NSFC/China [22275038, 21975046]; National Key Research and Development Program of China [2017YFA0207700]; Olle Engkvist Byggmastare Foundation [189-0223]; High Performance Computing Center North (HPC2N) in Umea, Sweden [SNIC 2019/2-41]

Qingsong Liu,1,2,* Lunyu Li,2,* Dan Zheng,1 Songlin Jin,2 Xiaotian Guan,2 Zeting Fu,2 Zhigang Xiong,1 Haili Ding3 1Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China; 2School of Sports Medicine and Health, Chengdu Sport University, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China; 3Insititute of Sports Medicine and Health, Chengdu Sport University, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Haili Ding, No. 2, Gymnasium Road, Chengdu, Sichuan, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 13688467479, Email dingdingtang111@163.comPurpose: This study examined the underlying mechanisms of SJD’s anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects on acute GA flares.Methods: This study used pharmacology network and molecular docking methods. The active ingredients of ShuiJingDan (SJD) were obtained from the Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Analysis Platform (TCMSP), and the relevant targets of GA were obtained from the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) database and Therapeutic Target Database (TTD). The core drug group–target–disease Venn diagram was formed by crossing the active ingredients of SJD and the relevant targets. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis was conducted for functional annotation, DAVID was used for Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes, and Genomes pathway enrichment analysis, and R was used to find the core targets. The accuracy of SJD network pharmacology analysis in GA treatment was verified by molecular docking simulations. Finally, a rat GA model was used to further verify the anti-inflammatory mechanism of SJD in the treatment of GA.Results: SJD mainly acted on target genes including IL1B, PTGS2, CXCL8, EGF, and JUN, as well as signal pathways including NF-κB, Toll-like receptor (TLR), IL-17, and MAPK. The rat experiments showed that SJD could significantly relieve ankle swelling, reduce the local

Across the Miocene-Pliocene boundary (MPB; 5.3 million years ago, Ma), late Miocene cooling gave way to the early-to-middle Pliocene Warm Period. This transition, across which atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased to levels similar to present, holds potential for deciphering regional climate responses in Asia-currently home to more than half of the world's population- to global climate change. Here we find that CO2-induced MPB warming both increased summer monsoon moisture transport over East Asia, and enhanced aridification over large parts of Central Asia by increasing evaporation, based on integration of our ~1-2-thousand-year (kyr) resolution summer monsoon records from the Chinese Loess Plateau aeolian red clay with existing terrestrial records, land-sea correlations, and climate model simulations. Our results offer palaeoclimate-based support for 'wet-gets-wetter and dry-gets-drier' projections of future regional hydroclimate responses to sustained anthropogenic forcing. Moreover, our high-resolution monsoon records reveal a dynamic response to eccentricity modulation of solar insolation, with predominant 405-kyr and ~100-kyr periodicities between 8.1 and 3.4 Ma.

Across the Miocene-Pliocene boundary (MPB; 5.3 million years ago, Ma), late Miocene cooling gave way to the early-to-middle Pliocene Warm Period. This transition, across which atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased to levels similar to present, holds potential for deciphering regional climate responses in Asia-currently home to more than half of the world's population- to global climate change. Here we find that CO2-induced MPB warming both increased summer monsoon moisture transport over East Asia, and enhanced aridification over large parts of Central Asia by increasing evaporation, based on integration of our ~1-2-thousand-year (kyr) resolution summer monsoon records from the Chinese Loess Plateau aeolian red clay with existing terrestrial records, land-sea correlations, and climate model simulations. Our results offer palaeoclimate-based support for 'wet-gets-wetter and dry-gets-drier' projections of future regional hydroclimate responses to sustained anthropogenic forcing. Moreover, our high-resolution monsoon records reveal a dynamic response to eccentricity modulation of solar insolation, with predominant 405-kyr and ~100-kyr periodicities between 8.1 and 3.4 Ma.

Constraining monsoon variability and dynamics in the warm unipolar icehouse world of the Late Oligocene can provide important clues to future climate responses to global warming. Here, we present a ~4-thousand year (ka) resolution rubidium-to-strontium ratio and magnetic susceptibility records between 28.1 and 24.1 million years ago from a distal alluvial sedimentary sequence in the Lanzhou Basin (China) on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau margin. These Asian monsoon precipitation records exhibit prominent short (~110-ka) and long (405-ka) eccentricity cycles throughout the Late Oligocene, with a weak expression of obliquity (41-ka) and precession (19-ka and 23-ka) cycles. We conclude that a combination of eccentricity-modulated low-latitude summer insolation and glacial-interglacial Antarctic Ice Sheet fluctuations drove the eccentricity-paced precipitation variability on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau in the Late Oligocene high CO2 world by governing regional temperatures, water vapor loading in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans, and the Asian monsoon intensity and displacement.

Network address translation (NAT) is a basic functionality in cloud gateways. With the increasing traffic volume and number of flows introduced by the cloud tenants, the NAT gateway needs to be implemented on a cluster of servers. We propose to scale up the gateway servers, which could reduce the number of servers so as to reduce the capital expense and operation expense. We design HyperNAT, which leverages smartNICs to improve the server's processing capacity. In HyperNAT, the NAT functionality is distributed on multiple NICs, and the flow space is divided and assigned accordingly. HyperNAT overcomes the challenge that the packets in two directions of one connection need to be processed by the same NAT rule (named two-direction consistency, TDC) by cloning the rule to both data paths of the two directions. Our implementation and evaluation of HyperNAT show that HyperNAT could scale up cloud gateway effectively with low overhead., Comment: 6 pages, it has been accepted at Globecom 2021

In this paper, we develop a novel virtual-queue-based online algorithm for online convex optimization (OCO) problems with long-term and time-varying constraints and conduct a performance analysis with respect to the dynamic regret and constraint violations. We design a new update rule of dual variables and a new way of incorporating time-varying constraint functions into the dual variables. To the best of our knowledge, our algorithm is the first parameter-free algorithm to simultaneously achieve sublinear dynamic regret and constraint violations. Our proposed algorithm also outperforms the state-of-the-art results in many aspects, e.g., our algorithm does not require the Slater condition. Meanwhile, for a group of practical and widely-studied constrained OCO problems in which the variation of consecutive constraints is smooth enough across time, our algorithm achieves $O(1)$ constraint violations. Furthermore, we extend our algorithm and analysis to the case when the time horizon $T$ is unknown. Finally, numerical experiments are conducted to validate the theoretical guarantees of our algorithm, and some applications of our proposed framework will be outlined., Comment: 31 pages, it has been accepted at Performance 2021

The first major build-up of Antarctic glaciation occurred in two consecutive stages across the Eocene-Oligocene transition (EOT): the EOT-1 cooling event at similar to 34.1-33.9Ma and the Oi-1 glaciation event at similar to 33.8-33.6Ma. Detailed orbital-scale terrestrial environmental responses to these events remain poorly known. Here we present magnetic and geochemical climate records from the northeastern Tibetan Plateau margin that are dated precisely from similar to 35.5 to 31Ma by combined magneto- and astro-chronology. These records suggest a hydroclimate transition at similar to 33.7Ma from eccentricity dominated cycles to oscillations paced by a combination of eccentricity, obliquity, and precession, and confirm that major Asian aridification and cooling occurred at Oi-1. We conclude that this terrestrial orbital response transition coincided with a similar transition in the marine benthic delta O-18 record for global ice volume and deep-sea temperature variations. The dramatic reorganization of the Asian climate system coincident with Oi-1 was, thus, a response to coeval atmospheric CO2 decline and continental-scale Antarctic glaciation. Marine records indicate a greenhouse to icehouse climate transition at similar to 34 million years ago, but how the climate changed within continental interiors at this time is less well known. Here, the authors show an orbital climate response shift with aridification on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau during this time.

Determination of hematite contributions to sedimentary magnetizations is an important but difficult task in quantitative environmental studies. The poorly crystalline and fine-grained nature of hematite nanoparticles makes quantification of their concentrations in natural environments challenging using mineralogical and spectroscopic methods, while the weak magnetization of hematite and often significant superparamagnetic nanoparticle concentrations make quantification difficult using magnetic remanence measurements. We demonstrate here that much-used magnetic parameters, such as the S-ratio and "hard" isothermal remanent magnetization (HIRM), tend to significantly underestimate relative and absolute hematite contents, respectively. Unmixing of isothermal remanent magnetization (IRM) acquisition curves is among the more suitable approaches for defining magnetic mineral contributions, although it has under-appreciated uncertainties that limit hematite quantification. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and other methods can enable relative hematite and goethite content quantification under some conditions. Combined use of magnetic, mineralogical, and spectroscopic approaches provides valuable cross-checks on estimated hematite contents; such an integrated approach is recommended here. Further work is also needed to rise to the challenge of developing improved methods for hematite quantification.

Interactions between plants and insect herbivores are important determinants of plant productivity in cultivated and natural agricultural fields. The rice leaf folder (Cnaphalocrocis medinalis) causes tremendous damage to rice production in Asian countries. However, little information is available about how rice plants defend themselves against this destructive pest at molecular and biochemical levels. Here, we observed the transcriptomic and metabolomic differences in rice leaves after 0, 1, 6, 12, and 24 h of being fed by C. medinalis using RNA sequencing and metabolome profiling. Transcriptional analyses showed that gene expression responds rapidly to leaf folder infestation, with the most significant transcriptional changes occurring within 6 h after the initiation of feeding. Metabolite abundance changed more slowly than gene expression. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analyses indicated that the rice transcriptional response to infestation involved genes encoding protein kinases, transcription factors, biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, photosynthesis, and phytohormone signaling. Moreover, the jasmonic acid-dependent signaling pathway triggered by leaf folder herbivory played a vital role in rice defense against this pest. Taken together, our results provide comprehensive insights into the defense system of rice to this species and may inform the development of insect-resistant rice varieties.

Interactions between plants and insect herbivores are important determinants of plant productivity in cultivated and natural agricultural fields. The rice leaf folder (Cnaphalocrocis medinalis) causes tremendous damage to rice production in Asian countries. However, little information is available about how rice plants defend themselves against this destructive pest at molecular and biochemical levels. Here, we observed the transcriptomic and metabolomic differences in rice leaves after 0, 1, 6, 12, and 24 h of being fed by C. medinalis using RNA sequencing and metabolome profiling. Transcriptional analyses showed that gene expression responds rapidly to leaf folder infestation, with the most significant transcriptional changes occurring within 6 h after the initiation of feeding. Metabolite abundance changed more slowly than gene expression. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analyses indicated that the rice transcriptional response to infestation involved genes encoding protein kinases, transcription factors, biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, photosynthesis, and phytohormone signaling. Moreover, the jasmonic acid-dependent signaling pathway triggered by leaf folder herbivory played a vital role in rice defense against this pest. Taken together, our results provide comprehensive insights into the defense system of rice to this species and may inform the development of insect-resistant rice varieties.

This paper is concerned with data-driven unsupervised domain adaptation, where it is unknown in advance how the joint distribution changes across domains, i.e., what factors or modules of the data distribution remain invariant or change across domains. To develop an automated way of domain adaptation with multiple source domains, we propose to use a graphical model as a compact way to encode the change property of the joint distribution, which can be learned from data, and then view domain adaptation as a problem of Bayesian inference on the graphical models. Such a graphical model distinguishes between constant and varied modules of the distribution and specifies the properties of the changes across domains, which serves as prior knowledge of the changing modules for the purpose of deriving the posterior of the target variable $Y$ in the target domain. This provides an end-to-end framework of domain adaptation, in which additional knowledge about how the joint distribution changes, if available, can be directly incorporated to improve the graphical representation. We discuss how causality-based domain adaptation can be put under this umbrella. Experimental results on both synthetic and real data demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed framework for domain adaptation. The code is available at https://github.com/mgong2/DA_Infer ., Comment: 19 pages; 8 figures

Eolian material within pelagic North Pacific Ocean (NPO) sediments contains considerable information about paleoclimate evolution in Asian dust source areas. Eolian signals preserved in NPO sediments have been used as indices for enhanced Asian interior aridity. We here report a detailed eolian dust record, with chemical index of alteration (CIA) and Rb/Sr variations, for NPO sediments from Ocean Drilling Program Hole 885A over the past 4.0 m.y. CIA and Rb/Sr co-vary with the dust signal carried by combined eolian hematite and goethite concentrations. Changes in CIA around the intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation (iNHG) event at ca. 2.75 Ma indicate that dust production in source areas was associated mostly with physical and chemical weathering before and after the iNHG event, respectively. We here attribute the eolian flux increase into the NPO across the iNHG event mainly to increased availability of wind-erodible sediment in dust source areas derived from snow and glacial meltwater runoff, which resulted from glacial expansion and enhanced snowfall in the mountains surrounding the Tarim region in response to global cooling. Our results provide a deeper understanding of Asian interior environmental changes in response to global paleoclimate changes, where dust source areas became intermittently moister rather than more arid in response to global cooling.

Ferrihydrite is among the most common precursors for iron-oxide formation in soils and sediments. Previous studies proposed a three-stage process for ferrihydrite transformation to hematite via an intermediate ferrimagnetic phase, which provides the basis for interpreting iron-oxide formation and its paleoenvironmental significance. From our new results, we identified two extra stages in this transformation, which fundamentally change the conventional model. The revised five-stage model is: (I) magnetically ordered (or core-shell structured) superparamagnetic (SP) ferrihydrite formation, (II) rapid hematite formation from SP ferrihydrite, (III) relative hematite stabilization, (IV) maghemite nanoparticle neoformation, and (V) completion of the transformation from maghemite to hematite. Unlike the previous model, in which pedogenic maghemite and hematite were formed mainly in stages I and II, we conclude that they are formed dominantly in stages IV and V, respectively. Thus, our work provides a new framework for interpreting pedogenic iron oxides and their paleoclimatic implications in natural environments.

Early Cenozoic plate collision of India and Eurasia was a significant geological event, which resulted in Tibetan Plateau (TP) uplift and altered regional and global atmospheric circulations. However, the timing of initial collision is debated. It also remains unclear whether the TP was deformed either progressively northward, or synchronously as a whole. As the largest basin in the hinterland of the TP, evolution of the Hoh Xil Basin (HXB) and its structural relationship with development of the Tanggula Thrust System (TTS) have important implications for unraveling the formation mechanism and deformation history of the TP. In this study, we present results from a long sedimentary sequence from the HXB that dates the Fenghuoshan Group to ∼72–51 Ma based on magnetostratigraphy and radiometric ages of a volcanic tuff layer within the group. Three depositional phases reflect different stages of tectonic movement on the TTS, which was initialized at 71.9 Ma prior to the India–Eurasia collision. An abrupt sediment accumulation rate increase from 53.9 Ma is a likely response to tectonic deformation in the plateau hinterland, and indicates that initial India–Eurasia collision occurred at no later than that time. This remote HXB tectonosedimentary response implies that compressional deformation caused by India–Eurasia collision likely propagated to the central TP shortly after the collision, which supports the synchronous deformation model for TP.

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the hydroxylated analog of chloroquine, is an antimalarial lysomotropic agent that inhibits autophagy due to lysosomal acidification, and subsequently blocks the fusion of autophagosomes with lysosomes which leads to the accumulation of autophagosomes that may accelerate tumor cell death. Given these hypothesis the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of HCQ in the inhibition of autophagy and the induction of apoptosis in cervical cancer SiHa cells. Cervical cancer SiHa cells were cultured with Hank's balanced salt solution (HBSS) as positive control of autophagy or treated with HCQ as part of the experimental groups. LC3 and P62/SQSTM1 were detected by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and western blotting, respectively in order to evaluate initially autophagosome formation and their degradation. Specific green fluorescent protein (GFP)-LC3 was subsequently detected by fluorescence microscopy in order to confirm the formation of autophagosomes. MTT and flow cytometry were adopted respectively to assess the proliferation and apoptosis of the SiHa cells. miRNA-9* was also investigated. The results demonstrated that HCQ increased the expressions of LC3 mRNA and LC3II protein and GFP-LC3 signalling but reduced the expression of p62/STSQM1 in cervical cancer SiHa cells. These results indicated HCQ has the ability to inhibit autophagy as incapable of degrading the autophagosome. However, HCQ may promote SiHa cell apoptosis as the MTT, apoptotic assay and miRNA-9* results revealed. HCQ has the ability to inhibit autophagy by blocking the degradation of autophagosomes and subsequently facilitates the apoptosis of cervical cancer SiHa cells.

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the hydroxylated analog of chloroquine, is an antimalarial lysomotropic agent that inhibits autophagy due to lysosomal acidification, and subsequently blocks the fusion of autophagosomes with lysosomes which leads to the accumulation of autophagosomes that may accelerate tumor cell death. Given these hypothesis the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of HCQ in the inhibition of autophagy and the induction of apoptosis in cervical cancer SiHa cells. Cervical cancer SiHa cells were cultured with Hank's balanced salt solution (HBSS) as positive control of autophagy or treated with HCQ as part of the experimental groups. LC3 and P62/SQSTM1 were detected by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and western blotting, respectively in order to evaluate initially autophagosome formation and their degradation. Specific green fluorescent protein (GFP)-LC3 was subsequently detected by fluorescence microscopy in order to confirm the formation of autophagosomes. MTT and flow cytometry were adopted respectively to assess the proliferation and apoptosis of the SiHa cells. miRNA-9* was also investigated. The results demonstrated that HCQ increased the expressions of LC3 mRNA and LC3II protein and GFP-LC3 signalling but reduced the expression of p62/STSQM1 in cervical cancer SiHa cells. These results indicated HCQ has the ability to inhibit autophagy as incapable of degrading the autophagosome. However, HCQ may promote SiHa cell apoptosis as the MTT, apoptotic assay and miRNA-9* results revealed. HCQ has the ability to inhibit autophagy by blocking the degradation of autophagosomes and subsequently facilitates the apoptosis of cervical cancer SiHa cells.

This special issue is based primarily on Session SE04 “Recent advances in paleo-, rock and environmental magnetism” held during the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) 2014 Meeting (28 July–1 August in Sapporo, Japan). The special issue focuses on various topics in environmental, rock, and paleomagnetism including applications, instruments, and databases and is not limited to the presentations at the Session. In total, 13 articles were published in the special issue, which are described below in several categories.

Rice and maize are important cereal crops that serve as staple foods, feed, and industrial material in China. Multiple factors constrain the production of both crops, among which insect pests are an important one. Lepidopteran pests cause enormous yield losses for the crops annually. In order to control these pests, China plays an active role in development and application of genetic engineering (GE) to crops, and dozens of GE rice and GE maize lines expressing insecticidal proteins from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) have been developed. Many lines have entered environmental release, field testing, and preproduction testing, and laboratory and field experiments have shown that most of the Bt rice and Bt maize lines developed in China exhibited effective control of major target lepidopteran pests on rice (Chilo suppressalis, Scirpophaga incertulas, and Cnaphalocrocis medinalis) and maize (Ostrinia furnacalis), demonstrating bright prospects for application. However, none of these Bt lines has yet been commercially planted through this writing in 2016. Challenges and perspectives for development and application of Bt rice and maize in China are discussed. This article provides a general context for colleagues to learn about research and development of Bt crops in China, and may shed light on future work in this field.

Hematite and goethite in soils are often aluminum(Al) substituted, which can dramatically change their and magnetic properties and bias abundance estimates using diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and magnetic techniques. In this study, synthetic Al-substituted hematites and goethites and two Chinese loess/paleosol sequences were investigated to test the feasibility and limitations of estimating Al-hematite and Al-goethite concentration. When Al substitution is limited (Al/(Al+ Fe) molar ratio<~8%), the reflectance spectrumprovides a reliable estimate of the goethite/hematite concentration ratio. New empirical relationships between the DRS band intensity ratio and the true concentration goethite/hematite ratio are estimated as goethite/hematite= 1.56 × (I₄₂₅ nm/I₅₃₅ nm) or goethite/hematite= 6.32 × (I₄₈₀ nm/I₅₃₅ nm), where I₄₂₅ nm, I₄₈₀ nm, and I₅₃₅ nm are the amplitudes of DRS second-derivative curves for characteristic bands at ~425 nm, ~480 nm, and ~535 nm, respectively. High Al substitution (> ~8%) reduces DRS band intensity, which leads to biased estimates of mineral concentration. Al substitution and grain size exert a control on coercivity distributions of hematite and goethite and, thus, affect the hard isothermal remanent magnetization. By integrating DRS and magneticmethods, we suggest a way to constrain hematite and goethite Al substitution in natural loess. Results indicate that hematite and goethite in Chinese loess have Al contents lower than ~8% and, thus, that DRS can be used to trace hematite and goethite concentration variations.

Aluminum-substituted magnetite (Al-magnetite) reduced from Al-substituted hematite or goethite (Al-hematite or Al-goethite) is an environmentally important constituent of magnetically enhanced soils. In order to characterize the magnetic properties of Al-magnetite, two series of Al-magnetite samples were synthesized through reduction of Al-hematite by a mixed gas (80% CO₂ and 20% CO) at 395°C for 72 h in a quartz tube furnace. Al-magnetite samples inherited the morphology of their parent Al-hematite samples, but only those transformed from Al-hematite synthesized at low temperature possessed surficial micropores, which originated from the release of structural water during heating. Surface micropores could thus serve as a practical fingerprint of fire or other high-temperature mineralogical alteration processes in natural environments, e.g., shear friction in seismic zones. In addition, Al substitution greatly affects the magnetic properties of Al-magnetite. For example, coercivity (Bc) increases with increasing Al content and then decreases slightly, while the saturation magnetization (Ms), Curie temperature (Tc), and Verwey transition temperature (Tv) all decrease with increasing Al content due to crystal defect formation and dilution of magnetic ions caused by Al incorporation. Moreover, different trends in the correlation between Tc and Bc can be used to discriminate titanomagnetite from Al-magnetite, which is likely to be important in environmental and paleomagnetic studies, particularly in soil.

This special issue is based primarily on Session SE04 “Recent advances in paleo-, rock and environmental magnetism” held during the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) 2014 Meeting (28 July–1 August in Sapporo, Japan). The special issue focuses on various topics in environmental, rock, and paleomagnetism including applications, instruments, and databases and is not limited to the presentations at the Session. In total, 13 articles were published in the special issue, which are described below in several categories.

This special issue is based primarily on Session SE04 “Recent advances in paleo-, rock and environmental magnetism” held during the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) 2014 Meeting (28 July–1 August in Sapporo, Japan). The special issue focuses on various topics in environmental, rock, and paleomagnetism including applications, instruments, and databases and is not limited to the presentations at the Session. In total, 13 articles were published in the special issue, which are described below in several categories.