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The increase in extreme precipitation (EP) may pose a serious threat to the health and safety of population in arid and semi-arid regions. The current research on the impact of EP on population in Central Asia (CA) is insufficient and there is an urgent need for a comprehensive assessment. Hence, we opted for precipitation and temperature data under two Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP2–4.5 and SSP5–8.5) from ten Global Climate Models (GCMs), which were obtained from the NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NEX-GDDP-CMIP6). By integrating population data in 2020 and 2050 (SSP2 and SSP5), we investigated the future changes in EP and population exposure in CA under 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming scenarios (GWSs). Our analysis indicates that EP in CA is projected to increase with global warming. Under the SSP5–8.5, the maximum daily precipitation (Rx1day) exhibits an average response rate to global warming of 3.58 %/K (1.99–4.06 %/K). With rising temperatures, an increasing number of areas and populations in CA will be impacted by EP, especially in the Fergana valley. Approximately 25% of the population (land area) in CA is exposed to Rx1day with increases of more than 8.31% (9.32%) under 1.5 °C GWS and 14.18% (13.25%) under 2 °C GWS. Controlling temperature rise can be effective in reducing population exposures to EP. For instance, limiting the temperature increase to 1.5 °C instead of 2 °C results in a 2.79% (1.75%–4.59%) reduction in population exposure to Rx1day. Finally, we found that climate change serves as the predominant factor influencing the population exposure to EP, while the role of population redistribution, although relatively minor, should not be disregarded. Particularly for prolonged drought, the role of population redistribution manifests negatively.

Study area: The Manas River Basin (84°01′−86°32′E, 42°27′−45°21′N) on the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains and the Kaidu River Basin (82°18′−85°57′E, 40°54′−44°30′N) on the southern slopes. Study focus: Traditional gap filling models struggle to accurately simulate daily streamflow in data-scarce regions. The underutilize of multi-source data leads to insufficient simulation ability for extremely high values of streamflow. Currently, a quantitative relationship between daily streamflow and hydro-meteorological factors has not been systematically established, despite the potential for improving accuracy of hydrological models through such relationships. To address this, a Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Model were employed to investigate the driving factors of daily streamflow data. This study tested and compared the gap filling efficiency of mainstream models in the Tianshan Mountains region and provided a quantitative gap filling model for data-scarce areas. New hydrological insights for the region: This study has revealed a strong correlation between the missing rate and the efficiency of gap filling models. It is revealed that the DDPM model accurately simulates streamflow in the climatic conditions of the region and outperformed other models in terms of all missing rates, which holds significant implications for gaining a deeper understanding of the water balance process and enhancing hydrological and meteorological simulations in data-scarce regions.

In this study, oil bodies (OBs) loaded with curcumin (Cur) were successfully prepared via an ultrasonic and pH-driven method. Ultrasonic treatment significantly improved the encapsulation efficiency (EE) and loading capacity (LC) of Cur, producing OB particles with small size, uniform distribution, and high ζ-potential absolute values. When the ultrasonic power was 200 W, the EE, LC, and ζ-potential absolute value were the greatest (88.27 %, 0.044 %, and −25.71 mV, respectively), and the OBs possessed the highest yellowness, representing the best treatment result. The confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and cryo-scanning electron microscopy (cryo-SEM) results was also intuitionally shown that. Moreover, circular dichroism (CD) proved that ultrasonic treatment could unfold the surface protein structure, further enhancing the stability. Therefore, the cream index (CI), peroxide value (POV), and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were the lowest when the ultrasonic power was 200 W. In this case, the Cur loaded in OBs was well protected against hostile conditions, evidenced by the highest Cur retention rate and the lowest degradation rate constant. Finally, the in vitro gastrointestinal digestion simulation results showed that the ultrasonic treatment effectively increased the release of FFA, bioaccessibility, and stability of Cur, especially when the ultrasonic power was 200 W. This research offers a new OB-based delivery system to stabilize, deliver, and protect Cur for food processing.

Climate change is exacerbating the occurrence of compound droughts and heatwaves (CDHWs), which pose a serious threat to human health and socio-economic development. Using daily maximum temperature (Tmax) and monthly self-calibrating Palmer drought severity index (sc-PDSI) dataset, the evolution patterns of CDHWs and compound wet-heatwave events, the dominant drivers and the relative contributions of droughts and heatwaves in the drylands and humid areas from 1961 to 2020 were compared and analyzed. The results show that the CDHWs are stronger in drylands than in humid areas, the growth rate of CDHWs in drylands was almost twice that of the humid areas, the CDHWs are greater than the multi-year average intensity of compound wet-heatwave events by up to 2.4 times. Moreover, CDHWs has increased significantly from the past period (1961–1990) to the recent warm period (1991–2020), and the heatwave threshold has increased by about 5 °C. In most drylands, the contribution of heatwaves to CDHWs dominates, whereas in humid areas, the droughts contribution to CDHWs does. The compounding effects of droughts and heatwaves may exacerbate the severity of CDHWs regionally and are most pronounced in drylands, taking into account optimal lags. The study findings could provide scientific and technological support to actively address global climate change risks.

We proposed and fabricated toroidal dipole (TD) metasurfaces(MSs) with a metamolecule of two coplanar U-shaped split ring resonators(USRRs) fabricated on polyimide substrate, and TD metamaterials (MMs) were the stacks of two TD MSs layers, whose frequencies, electromagnetic (EM) distributions and Q factor can be efficiently affected by the EM coupling effect in TD MSs/MMs. It was found that the resonances frequencies of TD MMs were shifted to lower frequencies due to the increase of inductance by the stacks of metallic layer. Meanwhile, the high-frequency TD resonance in TD MMs would be tailored by the periodicity. Considering the relation between TD resonances and the scattering power of TD (Ty), the Q factor depended highly on the value of Ty in the same metamolecule structure. The optimization in excitation of TD provide opportunity to further increase the Q-factor of metamaterial and pave a way for potential applications in terahertz sensor and other functional devices.

After the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in 2011, the demand for new and innovative nuclear reactor technologies is increasing. The present work implements potential Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF), U3Si2-FeCrAl, and innovative fuel designs, annular type, to small reactor systems. Neutronic analyses at both the assembly and core levels are performed for the traditional UO2-Zr system and the candidate ATF U3Si2-FeCrAl systems with cylindrical fuel rod as well as the annular fuel rod design. The whole core level studies show that with 10% enrichment fuel, the lifetime of the annular fuel can achieve up to 55 MWd/kg, whereas those of the cylindrical U3Si2-FeCrAl system and the UO2-Zr system are 60 and 67 MWd/kg, respectively. A larger thermal neutron penalty and higher 239Pu amount are observed in the ATF systems (more significant in the annular fuel design). Compared with the two cylindrical designs, the annular design leads to a higher power peak value and more heterogeneous power distribution in an assembly and in the core. The calculated negative fuel and moderator temperature coefficients throughout the whole life ensure the inherent safety of the core loaded with one of the three fuel assemblies. Therefore, the preliminary results indicate the rationality of the core design loaded with the traditional fuel and the U3Si2-FeCrAl system with both cylindrical and annular fuel designs.

Abstract: The current standard of care for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is largely ineffective with very high relapse rates and low survival rates, mostly due to the inability to eliminate a rare population of leukemic stem cells (LSCs) that initiate tumor growth and are resistant to standard chemotherapy. RNA-sequencing analysis on isolated LSCs confirmed C-type lectin domain family 12 member A (CLL1, also known as CLEC12A) to be highly expressed on LSCs but not on normal hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) or other healthy organ tissues. Expression of CLL1 was consistent across different types of AML. We developed CLT030 (CLL1-ADC), an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) based on a humanized anti-CLL1 antibody with 2 engineered cysteine residues linked covalently via a cleavable linker to a highly potent DNA-binding payload, thus resulting in a site-specific and homogenous ADC product. The ADC is designed to be stable in the bloodstream and to release its DNA-binding payload only after the ADC binds to CLL1-expressing tumor cells, is internalized, and the linker is cleaved in the lysosomal compartment. CLL1-ADC inhibits in vitro LSC colony formation and demonstrates robust in vivo efficacy in AML cell tumor models and tumor growth inhibition in the AML patient-derived xenograft model. CLL1-ADC demonstrated a reduced effect on differentiation of healthy normal human CD34+ cells to various lineages as observed in an in vitro colony formation assay and in an in vivo xenotransplantation model as compared with CD33-ADC. These results demonstrate that CLL1-ADC could be an effective ADC therapeutic for the treatment of AML.