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Owing to historical reasons, only a few locations in the Guangdong province use heating to enhance interior thermal conditions. With the variation in climate and increase in people's lifestyle requirements, winter heating has become increasingly necessary. However, a literature review revealed that only a few studies have investigated the heating requirements during winter in the Guangdong province. In this study, we compared the thermal comfort of radiant floor heating with wall-mounted air conditioner heating. A Guangzhou University climate chamber was used in several investigations. The findings revealed that the thermal neutral temperatures of radiant heating and air conditioner heating were 22.0 °C and 23.0 °C, respectively, about 1 °C variation in temperature. Additionally, in the research on thermal reactions and local skin temperature measurements, the impact of local thermal discomfort on the overall thermal experience was also considered. The findings showed a direct relationship between the local thermal discomfort caused by radiant heating and general thermal sensation. Thermal sensation of the subjects mainly originated from the lower extremities and was significantly affected by Va (air velocity). The relationship between the local thermal discomfort of convective heating and general thermal sensation was weak and mainly caused by the uneven thermal environment. Thus, in south China, for lowering energy usage, radiant floor heating should be used to create an improved indoor thermal environment in winter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aphidius gifuensis Ashmaed is a generalist endoparasitoid that parasitizes a variety of aphid species. In China, it is widely used as a biological control agent to protect vegetables and tobaccos in open fields; control efficiency is largely dependent on its host-seeking ability. In this study, a six-choice olfactometer was used to investigate the olfactory responses of A. gifuensis to tobacco plants that had suffered damage (either varying degrees of mechanical damage or from aphid-feeding at different time intervals) and tobacco volatiles with different dosages. Furthermore, the regularity of A. gifuensis females' response toward an aphid/tobacco complex was monitored using a Y-tube olfactometer. Our findings suggest that tobacco plants are significantly attractive to A. gifuensis after they have been punctured with 50 holes, or housed with Myzus persicae (Sulzer) at a density of 400 aphids, except at an infestation time of 12 h. Moreover, aphid density had a more significant effect on the response than the time interval since aphid application. Aphidius gifuensis was found to be active during the daytime and preferred to search for their aphid hosts at 14:00 h. Five EAG-active tobacco volatiles (trans-2-hexenal, methyl salicylate, benzaldehyde, cis-3-hexen-1-ol, and 1-hexanal) were found to significantly attract A. gifuensis females at different concentration ranges. The practical implications of these results are discussed in the framework of the sustainable biological control of pest aphids in agricultural production systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article author discusses definitions as starting points for exploring English playwright Ben Jonson's ideas about the interrelations of people, things and places. It further discusses various definitions of 'cosmopolitan' in the Oxford English Dictionary; emerging global interaction in the early modern period wrought by a global economic network centring on China; and the English cosmopolitan's fantasy of the baboons near China in "Volpone" play by Jonson.

• Bacterial assembly was dominated by drift (stochastic processes). • Fungal assembly was more governed by heterogeneous selection (deterministic processes). • Understory removal rapidly altered fungal community structure. • Understory removal had minor effects on the community assembly of bacteria and fungi. There is little known about how understory vegetation affects the soil microbial community assembly, although it exerts strong controls on the soil microbial community composition. We attempted to clarify this question by establishing an experiment in which the understory vegetation was either removed or maintained as controls in a primary tropical forest in south China. The results showed that removing the understory markedly altered the structure of fungal rather than bacterial communities. The bacterial assembly in control sites was dominated by drift (stochasticity), whereas the fungal assembly was governed more by heterogeneous selection (determinism). Removal of the understory had minor effects on the community assembly of bacteria and fungi. These results indicate that the absence of understory vegetation in tropical forests can quickly alter the fungal community structure without influencing the community assembly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: With the rapid development of digital graphic recognition technology, in recent years, more attention is given to the subject of animal and plant species identification which has become a popular researching field. The article mainly discusses about the method to apply graphic analyzing technology for bird identification research in the case of acquatic bird protection in the marsh of Minjiang River estuary. It also put forward a set of classification case with SVM Decision Tree for protesting information through deep analysis and study on bird color graph [2] in terms of shape, color and texture. The case takes on many advantages such as, excellent classification capacity, firm Over-generalization and accurate classification, which help to solve the disturbing classification problem lasting for many years. Moreover, the appearance of the case contributes to the effective recognition and classification of 15 birds species in Minjiang River estuary wetland. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Sample series of clean regular‐shaped ice representative of thermal interaction processes only were gathered in a controlled experiment on ice floes in China's Bohai Sea. Based on these samples, spectral characteristics for one‐year‐old sea ice were measured and analyzed. The same experiments were then performed for ice samples with two normal impurities and the results compared against those of clean samples. Along with increasing thickness, the reflectance of clean regular‐shaped ice rises in the form of a ladder within the visible light range. While flat regular‐shaped ice is covered by thaws snow and/or mixed with mud and sand, the trend of increasing reflection with thickness of clean regular‐shaped ice is disordered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of human activities on soil carbon (C) storage in tropical forests has aroused wide concern during the past decades, because these ecosystems play a key role in ameliorating global climate change. However, there remain uncertainties about how land-use history alters soil organic carbon (SOC) stability and storage in different forests. In this study, we measured the C content and mass distributions of soil aggregates, density fractions, mineral-bound C and microbial biomass C in the organic horizon, 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm soil layers in coniferous forest and evergreen broadleaf forest at Dinghushan Biosphere Reserve in tropical China. The broadleaf forest had larger SOC stocks than the coniferous forest, but the proportion of SOC stored in different density fractions at 0-10 cm soils was similar between forest types, while a greater proportion of SOC was stored in microaggregates in the coniferous forest. Most of the SOC was held as light fraction C in the organic horizon in the coniferous forest, whereas the concentrations of mineral-bound C were higher in the broadleaf forest. These findings indicate clear differences in the protection of SOC between broadleaf and coniferous forests growing on the same soil type. We propose that historic conversion of broadleaf forest to coniferous forest has reduced soil C sequestration capacity by altering the diversity and quality of plant inputs to the soil, which in turn affected macroaggregate formation, soil chemical properties and microbial biomass. Our results thus demonstrate that changes in forest tree species composition could have long-lasting effects on soil structure and carbon storage, providing crucial evidence for policy decisions on forest carbon sink management. • Historic conversion of broadleaf forest to coniferous forest altered distribution of soil aggregates and density fractions. • Broadleaf forest had a greater proportion of mineral-bound C and macroaggregate-C than that in coniferous forest. • Translating tropical broadleaf forest to coniferous forest reduced SOC stocks and C sequestration capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO) is a glycoprotein that acts as the main hormone involved in regulating red blood cell production to treat anemia caused by chronic kidney disease or chemotherapy. Since the expiration of the patent of the innovator epoetin alfa, numerous rhEPO products have emerged in global markets. As described here, multiple complementary analytical approaches are utilized for the extensive characterization of rhEPO molecules, and more importantly for the structural comparison of the rhEPO analogues on the Chinese market. The focus of this study is placed on the overall glycosylation profiling, O-glycan profiling, and N-glycan mapping by UPLC-MS with an aim to develop an effective analytical methodology to monitor the product quality attributes of rhEPO analogues. Two rhEPO analogues manufactured in China were analyzed to demonstrate the principle of the developed methods. Each rhEPO product showed a characteristic glycoform profile with respect to the distribution of sialic acids across multi-antennary structures, the occurrence of O-glycosylation, O-acetylation on sialic acids, and the extension of N-glycan antennae with N-acetyllactosamine units. The study demonstrates that UPLC-MS is an effective analytical tool to characterize and monitor the glycosylation profiles among rhEPO analogues in order to detect and account for the divergence between rhEPO products, as well as the presence of unusual or unexpected glycans. Image 1 • An extensive UPLC-MS characterization of rhEPO molecules for the structural comparison of the rhEPO analogues on Chinese market. • The study focuses on overall glycosylation profiling, O-glycan profiling, peptide mapping, and N-glycan mapping of rhEPO analogues. • An analytical methodology to monitor and assess the product quality attributes of rhEPO analogues is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sophora alopecuroides L., which is called Kudouzi in China, is a medicinal plant distributed in Western and Central Asia, especially in China, and has been used for decades to treat fever, bacterial infection, heart disease, rheumatism, and gastrointestinal diseases. This review aims to provide up-to-date information on S. alopecuroides , including its botanical characterization, medicinal resources, traditional uses, phytochemistry, pharmacological research, and toxicology, in exploring future therapeutic and scientific potentials. The information related to this article was systematically collected from the scientific literature databases including PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Science Direct, Springer, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, published books, PhD and MS dissertations, and other web sources, such as the official website of Flora of China and Yao Zhi website (https://db.yaozh.com/). A total of 128 compounds, such as alkaloids, flavonoids, steroids, and polysaccharides, were isolated from S. alopecuroides. Among these compounds, the effects of alkaloids, such as matrine and oxymatrine, were extensively studied and developed into new drugs. S. alopecuroides and its active components had a wide range of pharmacological activities, such as anticancer, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, analgesic, and neuroprotective functions, as well as protective properties against pulmonary fibrosis and cardiac fibroblast proliferation. As an important traditional Chinese medicine, modern pharmacological studies have demonstrated that S. alopecuroides has prominent bioactivities, especially on gynecological inflammation and hepatitis B, and anticancer activities. These activities provide prospects for novel drug development for cancer and some chronic diseases. Nevertheless, the comprehensive evaluation, quality control, understanding of the multitarget network pharmacology, long-term in vivo toxicity, and clinical efficacy of S. alopecuroides require further detailed research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]