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Evapotranspiration over crop growth period, also referred to as the consumptive water footprint of crop production (WFCP), is an essential component of the hydrological cycle. However, the existing high-resolution consumptive WFCP datasets do not distinguish between soil evaporation and crop transpiration and disregard the impacts of different irrigation practices. This restricts the practical implementation of existing WFCP datasets for precise crop water productivity assessments, agricultural water-saving evaluations, the development of sustainable irrigation techniques, cropping structure optimization, and crop-related interregional virtual water trade analysis. This study establishes a 5-arcmin gridded dataset of monthly green and blue WFCP, evaporation, transpiration, and associated unit WFCP benchmarks for 21 crops grown in China during 2000–2018. The data simulation was based on calibrated AquaCrop modelling under furrow-, sprinkler-, and micro-irrigated as well as rainfed conditions. Data quality was validated by comparing the current results with multiple public datasets and remote sensing products. The improved gridded WFCP dataset is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7756013 (Wang et al., 2023) and effectively compensated for the gaps in the existing datasets through (i) revealing the intensity, structure, and spatiotemporal evolution of both productive and non-productive blue and green water consumption on a monthly scale, and (ii) including crop-by-crop unit WFCP benchmarks according to climatic zones.

The magnetic dipole moments (μ) of 209Tlg (N=128) and 207Tlm (N=126) have been measured for the first time using the in-source laser resonance-ionization spectroscopy technique with the Laser Ion Source and Trap (LIST) at ISOLDE (CERN). The application of the LIST suppresses the usually overwhelming background of the isobaric francium isotopes and allows access to heavy thallium isotopes with A⩾207. The self-consistent theory of finite Fermi systems based on the energy density functional by Fayans et al. well describes the N dependence of μ for 1/2+ thallium ground states, as well as μ for the 11/2− isomeric states in europium, gold and thallium isotopes. The inclusion of particle-vibration coupling leads to a better agreement between the theory and experiment for μ(Tlg, Iπ=1/2+). It is shown that beyond mean-field contributions to μ cannot be neglected at least for thallium isotopes with Iπ=1/2+.

Adaptation to future climate change with limited water resources is a major global challenge to sustainable and sufficient crop production. However, the large-scale responses of the crop water footprint and its associated benchmarks under various irrigation regimes to future climate change scenarios remain unclear. The present study quantified the responses of the maize and wheat water footprint (WF) per unit yield (m3 t−1) as well as the corresponding WF benchmarks under two Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios, RCP2.6 and RCP8.5, in the 2030s, 2050s, and 2080s at a 5 arcmin grid level in China. The AquaCrop model with the outputs of six global climate models from Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) as its input data was used to simulate the WFs of maize and wheat. The differences among rain-fed wheat and maize and furrow-, micro-, and sprinkler-irrigated wheat and maize were identified. Compared with the baseline year (2013), the maize WF will increase under both RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 (by 17 % and 13 %, respectively) until the 2080s. The wheat WF will increase under RCP2.6 (by 12 % until the 2080s) and decrease (by 12 %) under RCP8.5 until the 2080s, with a higher increase in the wheat yield and a decrease in the wheat WF due to the higher CO2 concentration in 2080s under RCP8.5. The WF will increase the most for rain-fed crops. Relative to rain-fed crops, micro-irrigation and sprinkler irrigation result in the smallest increases in the WF for maize and wheat, respectively. These water-saving management techniques will mitigate the negative impact of climate change more effectively. The WF benchmarks for maize and wheat in the humid zone (an approximate overall average of 680 m3 t−1 for maize and 873 m3 t−1 for wheat at the 20th percentile) are 13 %–32 % higher than those in the arid zone (which experiences an overall average of 601 m3 t−1 for maize and 753 m3 t−1 for wheat). The differences in the WF benchmarks among various irrigation regimes are more significant in the arid zone, where they can be as high as 57 % for the 20th percentile: WF benchmarks of 1020 m3 t−1 for sprinkler-irrigated wheat and 648 m3 t−1 for micro-irrigated wheat. Nevertheless, the WF benchmarks will not respond to climate changes as dramatically as the WF in the same area, especially in areas with limited agricultural development. The present study demonstrated that the observed different responses to climate change in terms of crop water consumption, water use efficiency, and WF benchmarks under different irrigation regimes cannot be ignored. It also lays the foundation for future investigations into the influences of irrigation methods, RCPs, and crop types on the WF and its benchmarks in response to climate change in all agricultural regions worldwide.

This paper presents a brief overview of photogrammetry and remote sensing technologies and applications in the Chang’e-4 mission. The developed technologies, such as image matching, block adjustment, 3D mapping, spectral analysis and mineral retrieval, have been applied in topographic mapping, rover localization, and rover path planning, and directly supported daily surface operations of the Yutu-2 rover. The technologies and products have also been supportive in various scientific investigations, such as topographic evolution of Von Kármán crater, multi-scale crater morphologies, mineral composition of lunar deep materials, regolith maturity and space weathering effects, etc.

The Chang’e-4 (CE-4) probe, which includes a lander and a rover, was successfully landed in Von Kármán crater inside the South Pole-Aitken basin on January 3, 2019. Landing site mapping and topographic analyses have been performed at different scales using orbital, descent and ground data to support mission operations and various scientific investigations. We produced a 0.9 m-resolution seamless digital orthophoto map (DOM) mosaic of the CE-4 landing site region covering 51 km × 30 km using 100 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Narrow-Angle Camera (NAC) images. Within an area of 3.2 km × 3.0 km of the the DOM around the lander, more than 11,000 craters with diameter greater than 5 m have been identified and measured. A 0.03 m- resolution DOM, which covers an area of 211 m × 187 m, was generated using descent images, and has been used as one of the base maps for overall rover traverse planning. During surface operations, local DEMs with 0.02 m resolution are routinely produced and topographic analysis have been performed at each waypoint using Navcam images and at some locations using Pancam images, to support waypoint-to-waypoint path planning, science target selection and scientific investigations.

Wrinkle ridges are a common feature in the lunar maria and record subsequent contraction of mare infill. Automatic detection of wrinkle ridges is challenging because the ridges are of irregular shapes and many ridges have been eroded and/or degraded over time. The proposed method consists of the following steps. First, as the slope can reflect the gradient changes of the ridge rims to a certain extent, the slope map is generated and converted to a grayscale (0–255) image. Then the phase symmetry of the slope map is calculated with filter wavelength and filter scales parameters, which reduce the regions into symmetry regions. Next, a regional threshold is applied to limit the ridge candidates. Candidates with values less than the threshold are rejected. Moreover, the images are processed using a series of morphological operations, such as close, open, edge linking and noise removal. Finally, after thresholding the ridge map can be obtained. An experiment was performed using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) WAC image and topographic data from LOLA, the results demonstrate promising performance with detection percentage from 73 to 90.

Chang’e-4 (CE-4) has successfully soft landed in Von Kármán crater inside the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin at 10:26 am on January 3, 2019. High precision landing site mapping plays an essential role in mission operations and science applications before and after landing. In this paper, we propose a novel method for generating the highest resolution and the best precision Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and Digital Orthophoto Map (DOM) of the CE-4 landing area using available multi-source data. First, the CE-2 DTM is co-registered to SLDEM2015. Then the vertical inconsistencies of the co-registered DTMs are analysed and the biases of CE-2 DTM with respect to SLDEM2015 are erased. Finally, a new DTM with more information and better precision is generated by fusion of the co-registered DTMs. Using the new DTM as a reference, a seamless DOM is generated based on block adjustment of projected imagery, which can reduce the inconsistencies among the corrected images to sub-pixel level. As a result, a DTM of the Von Kármán crater area ( 42º S–48° S/172º E–180° E) and a seamless DOM covering an area of 2.3° in longitude and 1° in latitude with a ground sample distance of 0.9 m are generated using the developed method.

Vision based obstacle detection using stereo images is an essential way for hazard avoidance and path planning in planetary rover missions. However, due to light condition changes and topographic relief, only partial or sparse three-dimensional points may be derived by image matching and triangulation reconstruction, which is not sufficient for recognizing obstacles. In this paper, we developed a strategy to detect obstacles using rover stereo images by combining both image grayscale information and sparse 3D point information. Experiments were carried out using stereo images captured by navigation cameras mounted on the Yutu rover of Chang’e-3 mission. Moreover, how obstacle localization accuracy affected by the parameters are analysed and discussed.

To understand past Martian climates, it is important to know the distribution and nature of water ice on Mars. Impact craters are widely used ubiquitous indicators for the presence of subsurface water or ice on Mars. Remote sensing observations and numerical simulation are powerful tools for investigating morphological and topographic features on planetary surfaces, and we can use the morphology of layered ejecta craters and hydrocode modeling to constrain possible layering and impact environments. The approach of this work consists of three stages：Firstly, the morphological characteristics of the Martian layered ejecta craters are performed based on Martian images and DEM data. Secondly, numerical modeling layered ejecta are performed through the hydrocode iSALE (impact-SALE). We present hydrocode modeling of impacts onto targets with a single icy layer within an otherwise uniform basalt crust to quantify the effects of subsurface H2O on observable layered ejecta morphologies. The model setup is based on a layered target made up of a regolithic layer (described by the basalt ANEOS), on top an ice layer (described by ANEOS equation of H2O ice), in turn on top of an underlying basaltic crust. The bolide is a 0.8 km diameter basaltic asteroid hitting the Martian surface vertically at a velocity of 12.8 km/s. Finally, the numerical results are compared with the MOLA DEM profile in order to analyze the formation mechanism of Martian layered ejecta craters. Our simulations suggest that the presence of an icy layer significantly modifies the cratering mechanics, and many of the unusual features of SLE craters may be explained by the presence of icy layers. Impact cratering on icy satellites is significantly affected by the presence of subsurface H2O.

Chang’e-5, China’s first sample return lunar mission, will be launched in 2019, and the planned landing area is near Mons Rümker in Oceanus Procellarum. High-resolution and high-precision mapping of the landing area is of great importance for supporting scientific analysis and safe landing. This paper proposes a systematic method for large area seamless digital orthophoto map (DOM) generation, and presents the mapping result of Chang’e-5 landing area using over 700 LROC NAC images. The developed method mainly consists of two stages of data processing: stage 1 includes subarea block adjustment with rational function model (RFM) and seamless subarea DOM generation; stage 2 includes whole area adjustment through registration of the subarea DOMs with thin plate spline model and seamless DOM mosaicking. The resultant seamless DOM coves a large area (20° longitude × 4° latitude) and is tied to the widely used reference DEM – SLDEM2015. As a result, the RMS errors of the tie points are all around half pixel in image space, indicating a high internal precision; the RMS errors of the control points are about one grid cell size of SLDEM2015, indicating that the resultant DOM is tied to SLDEM2015 well.

The origin of the platy-ridged-polygonized (PRP) terrains on Martian surface has long been debated. The terrain has generally been classified as water, pack ice, or basalt lava related flow. The crater counting results of the PRP terrains suggest they are geologically very young; therefore, they are significant in understanding the recent evolution of Mars. This work evaluated the current hypotheses through detailed analysis of the distribution and microtopographies with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) images for the PRP terrains in Elysium Planitia, Mars. Quantitative measurements and statistics of the typical features of the PRP terrains were also made. In addition, we also found an analog site in Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, China. Our results suggest that mud flow is responsible for the formation of the PRP terrains on the Mars surface, although the hypothesis of low-viscosity basalt lava floods cannot be completely excluded. This finding implies that a regional environment suitable for liquid water may have existed in recent geologic time, which has great importance for future Mars scientific exploration.

This paper introduces a new image-guided non-local dense matching algorithm that focuses on how to solve the following problems: 1) mitigating the influence of vertical parallax to the cost computation in stereo pairs; 2) guaranteeing the performance of dense matching in homogeneous intensity regions with significant disparity changes; 3) limiting the inaccurate cost propagated from depth discontinuity regions; 4) guaranteeing that the path between two pixels in the same region is connected; and 5) defining the cost propagation function between the reliable pixel and the unreliable pixel during disparity interpolation. This paper combines the Census histogram and an improved histogram of oriented gradient (HOG) feature together as the cost metrics, which are then aggregated based on a new iterative non-local matching method and the semi-global matching method. Finally, new rules of cost propagation between the valid pixels and the invalid pixels are defined to improve the disparity interpolation results. The results of our experiments using the benchmarks and the Toronto aerial images from the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) show that the proposed new method can outperform most of the current state-of-the-art stereo dense matching methods.

VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite), onboard the Suomi NPP (National Polar-orbiting Partnership) satellite, has an improved resolution of 750 m with respect to the 1000 m of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer for the channels that allow retrieving cloud microphysical parameters such as cloud drop effective radius (re). VIIRS also has an imager with five channels of double resolution of 375 m, which was not designed for retrieving cloud products. A methodology for a high-resolution retrieval of re and microphysical presentation of the cloud field based on the VIIRS imager was developed and evaluated with respect to MODIS in this study. The tripled microphysical resolution with respect to MODIS allows obtaining new insights for cloud–aerosol interactions, especially at the smallest cloud scales, because the VIIRS imager can resolve the small convective elements that are sub-pixel for MODIS cloud products. Examples are given for new insights into ship tracks in marine stratocumulus, pollution tracks from point and diffused sources in stratocumulus and cumulus clouds over land, deep tropical convection in pristine air mass over ocean and land, tropical clouds that develop in smoke from forest fires and in heavy pollution haze over densely populated regions in southeastern Asia, and for pyro-cumulonimbus clouds. It is found that the VIIRS imager provides more robust physical interpretation and refined information for cloud and aerosol microphysics as compared to MODIS, especially in the initial stage of cloud formation. VIIRS is found to identify significantly more fully cloudy pixels when small boundary layer convective elements are present. This, in turn, allows for a better quantification of cloud–aerosol interactions and impacts on precipitation-forming processes.

This paper presents a preliminary result of crossover analysis and adjustment of Chang'E-1(CE-1) Laser Altimeter (LAM) data of the Moon for global and regional mapping applications. During the operation of Chang'E-1 from November 28, 2007 to December 4, 2008, the laser altimeter acquired 1400 orbital profiles with about 9.12 million altimetric points. In our experiment, we derived more than 1.38 million crossovers from 1395 ground tracks covering the entire lunar surface after eliminating outliers of orbits and altimetric points. A method of least-squares crossover adjustment with a series of basis functions of time (trigonometric functions and polynomials) is developed to reconcile the LAM data by minimizing the crossover residuals globally. The normal equations are very large but sparse; therefore they are stored and solved using sparse matrix technique. In a test area (0°N~60°N, 50°W~0°W), the crossover residuals are reduced from 62.1m to 32.8m, and the quality of the DEM generated from the adjusted LAM data is improved accordingly. We will optimize the method for the global adjustment to generate a high precision consistent global DEM, which can be used as absolute control for lunar mapping with orbital images.

In this paper, the basic electronic structures and elastic properties of Ni3Al doping with alloying elements (Re, Cr, and Mo) under different pressures have been investigated using first-principles calculations based on density functional theory. It is shown that both alloying elements and external applied pressure contribute positively to the elastic properties of Ni3Al, and the configurations of the compounds remain almost unchanged. The calculated elastic constants and moduli increase linearly with the pressure increasing from 0 and 40 GPa. Among the alloying elements studied in the present work, Re exhibits the most significant effect compared with the other elements, showing its practical importance. Especially, if both alloying elements doping and pressure effects are considered simultaneously, which has not been considered previously, the studied compounds exhibit an even better elastic property than the simple superposition of the two influences. Such synergistic effect demonstrates promising applications of Ni-based single crystal superalloys in possible extreme mechanical environments.

The VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) onboard the Suomi NPP (National Polar-Orbiting Partnership) satellite has improved resolution of 750m with respect to 1000m of the MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, for the channels that allow retrieving cloud microphysical parameters such as cloud drop effective radius (re). The VIIRS has also an imager with 5 channels of double resolution of 375 m, which was not designed for retrieving cloud products. A methodology for a high resolution retrieval of re and microphysical presentation of the cloud field based on the VIIRS imager was developed and evaluated with respect to MODIS in this study. The tripled microphysical resolution with respect to MODIS allows obtaining new insights for cloud aerosol interactions, especially at the smallest cloud scales, because the VIIRS imager can resolve the small convective elements that are sub-pixel for MODIS cloud products. Examples are given for new insights on ship tracks in marine stratocumulus, pollution tracks from point and diffused sources in stratocumulus and cumulus clouds over land, deep tropical convection in pristine air mass over ocean and land, tropical clouds that develop in smoke from forest fires and in heavy pollution haze over densely populated regions in southeast Asia, and for pyro-cumulonimbus clouds. It is found that the VIIRS imager provides more robust physical interpretation and refined information for cloud and aerosol microphysics as compared to MODIS, especially in the initial stage of cloud formation. VIIRS is found to identify much more full-cloudy pixels when small boundary layer convective elements are present. This, in turn, allows a better quantification of cloud aerosol interactions and impacts on precipitation forming processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty pigs were randomly divided into four groups based on the amount of time spent in transport (zero, one, two or four hours). Pathological examination of all transported pigs showed that exfoliation of chief cells from the gastric surface occurred in pigs during transportation. These results imply that integrity of the gastric mucosa was compromised by damage occurring during the four-hour transportation, despite the fact that gastric ulcers were not present. Levels of Hsp90 expression in stomach tissues were significantly decreased (P<0.01) after two-hour transportation, but Hsp70 levels increased significantly (P<0.05) after one, two and four hours of transportation. Hsp27 levels remained relatively stable independent of the length of transport. Levels of αB-crystallin expression in the stomach were significantly increased (P<0.05) after four hours of transportation. Variations in Hsp90, Hsp70, Hsp27 and aB-crystallin levels suggest that distinct protective functions are modulated by different Hsps in stomach tissues during transportation. Alterations in Hsp70 and αB-crystallin expression appear to be associated with protective functions, as no apparent gastric ulcers were present in pigs that underwent four hours of transportation. Levels of heat shock transcription factor-1, which regulate the expression of Hsps, remained relatively stable independent of the transportation period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The core–shell structure of Ag@CeO2 was prepared by a novel and facile method, which was based on the photothermal effect of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). Nanoparticles (NPs) of Ag were dispersed in a solution containing citric acid, ethylene glycol and cerium nitrate, then under irradiation, Ag NPs generated heat from LSPR and the heat-induced polymerization reaction in the interface between Ag and the sol resulted in cerium gel formation only on the surface of the Ag NPs. After calcination, Ag@CeO2 was successfully obtained, then Ag@CeO2/SiO2 was prepared by loading Ag@CeO2 on SiO2. The resultant catalyst exhibited favorable activity and stability for CO oxidation. The preparation method proposed here should be extendable to other composites with metallic cores and oxide shells in which the metallic nanoparticle possesses LSPR properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we proposed a method to map urban encroachment onto farmland using satellite image time series (SITS) based on the hierarchical hidden Markov model (HHMM). In this method, the farmland change process is decomposed into three hierarchical levels, i.e., the land cover level, the vegetation phenology level, and the SITS level. Then a three-level HHMM is constructed to model the multi-level semantic structure of farmland change process. Once the HHMM is established, a change from farmland to built-up could be detected by inferring the underlying state sequence that is most likely to generate the input time series. The performance of the method is evaluated on MODIS time series in Beijing. Results on both simulated and real datasets demonstrate that our method improves the change detection accuracy compared with the HMM-based method.

Maleic anhydride functionalized graphene oxide (MAH-GO) was synthesized and then introduced into carbon fiber (CF) reinforced bismaleimide (BMI) composites, with the aim of improving the interfacial adhesion strength between CF and BMI resin. Various characterization techniques including Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) demonstrated that the maleic anhydride has been successfully grafted onto the GO surfaces. The study showed that the interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) and flexural properties of CF/BMI composites were all improved by the incorporation of GO and MAH-GO, and the MAH-GO showed the substantially improved effect due to the strong interaction between the MAH-GO and the resin matrix. The maximum increment of the ILSS, flexural strength and flexural modulus of composites were 24.4, 28.7 and 49.7%, respectively. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) photographs of the fracture surfaces revealed that the interfacial bonding between CF and resin matrix was significantly strengthened by the addition of MAH-GO. The results suggest that this feasible method may be an ideal substitute for the traditional method in the interfacial modification of composites.

Purpose. To investigate the prognostic factors for visual outcome in traumatic cataract patients. Methods. The demographic features of traumatic cataract patients in Central China were studied. The factors that might influence the visual outcome were analyzed. The sensitivity and specificity of OTS (ocular trauma score) in predicting VA were calculated. Results. The study enrolled 480 cases. 65.5% of patients achieved VA at >20/60. The factors associated with the final VA were initial VA, injury type, wound location, the way of cataract removal, and IOL implantation. The sensitivities of OTS in predicting the VA at NLP (nonlight perception), LP/HM (light perception/hand motion), and ≥20/40 were 100%. The specificity of OTS to predict the final VA at 1/200-19/200 and 20/200-20/50 was 100%. Conclusion. The prognostic factors were initial VA, injury type, wound location, cataract removal procedure, and the way of IOL implantation. The OTS has good sensitivity and specificity in predicting visual outcome in traumatic cataract patients in long follow-up.