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Temperate- and high-latitude forests have been shown to contribute a carbon sink in the Northern Hemisphere, but fewer studies have addressed the carbon balance of the subtropical forests. In the present study, we integrated eddy covariance observations established in the 1990s and 2000s to show that East Asian monsoon subtropical forests between 20°N and 40°N represent an average net ecosystem productivity (NEP) of 362 ± 39 g C m-2 yr-1 (mean ± 1 SE). This average forest NEP value is higher than that of Asian tropical and temperate forests and is also higher than that of forests at the same latitudes in Europe- Africa and North America. East Asian monsoon subtropical forests have comparable NEP to that of subtropical forests of the southeastern United States and intensively managed Western European forests. The total NEP of East Asian monsoon subtropical forests was estimated to be 0.72 ± 0.08 Pg C yr-1, which accounts for 8% of the global forest NEP. This result indicates that the role of subtropical forests in the current global carbon cycle cannot be ignored and that the regional distributions of the Northern Hemisphere's terrestrial carbon sinks are needed to be reevaluated. The young stand ages and high nitrogen deposition, coupled with sufficient and synchronous water and heat availability, may be the primary reasons for the high NEP of this region, and further studies are needed to quantify the contribution of each underlying factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Soy isoflavones have antiestrogenic and anticancer properties but also possess estrogen-like properties, which has raised concern about soy food consumption among breast cancer survivors. Objective: We prospectively evaluated the association between postdiagnosis soy food consumption and breast cancer outcomes among US and Chinese women by using data from the After Breast Cancer Pooling Project. Design: The analysis included 9514 breast cancer survivors with a diagnosis of invasive breast cancer between 1991 and 2006 from 2 US cohorts and 1 Chinese cohort. Soy isoflavone intake (mg/d) was measured with validated food-frequency questionnaires. HRs and 95% CIs were estimated by using delayed-entry Cox regression models, adjusted for sociodemographic, clinical, and lifestyle factors. Results: After a mean follow-up of 7.4 y, we identified 1171 total deaths (881 from breast cancer) and 1348 recurrences. Despite large differences in soy isoflavone intake by country, isoflavone consumption was inversely associated with recurrence among both US and Chinese women, regardless of whether data were analyzed separately by country or combined. No heterogeneity was observed. In the pooled analysis, consumption of >10 mg isoflavones/d was associated with a nonsignificant reduced risk of all-cause (HR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.70, 1.10) and breast cancer-specific (HR: 0.83; 95% CI: 0.64, 1.07) mortality and a statistically significant reduced risk of recurrence (HR: 0.75; 95% CI: 0.61, 0.92). Conclusion: In this large study of combined data on US and Chinese women, postdiagnosis soy food consumption of >10 mg isoflavones/d was associated with a nonsignificant reduced risk of breast cancer- specific mortality and a statistically significant reduced risk of recurrence. One of the studies included in the After Breast Cancer Pooling Project, the Women's Healthy Eating & Living Study, was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00003787. Am J Clin Nutr 2012;96:123-32. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a low-power low-phase-noise 48-GHz CMOS LC voltage-control oscillator (VCO) using standard 0.13-μm CMOS technology is reported. Low-power consumption is achieved by maximizing the equivalent parallel resistance of the LC tank, while low-phase-noise is achieved by suppressing the up-conversion of the flicker noise of the PMOS current source to 1/f3-shaped phase noise close to the carrier. The VCO dissipated 5.556 mW power, and achieved state-of-the-art phase noise of -105 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset from 47.85 GHz. The corresponding figure-of-merit (FOM) was -191.1 dBc/Hz, which is better than those of the reported CMOS LC VCOs around 48 GHz in the literature. The chip area was 0.94 × 0.9 mm2 including the test pads. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 51: 997–1000, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.24256 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cloud-based software, VirtualDose-IR (Virtual Phantoms Inc., Albany, New York, USA), designed to report organ doses and effective doses for a diverse patient population from interventional radiology (IR) procedures has been developed and tested. This software is based on a comprehensive database of Monte Carlo-generated organ dose built with a set of 21 anatomically realistic patient phantoms. The patient types included in this database are both male and female people with different ages reflecting reference adults, obese people with different BMIs and pregnant women at different gestational stages. Selectable parameters such as patient type, tube voltage, filtration thickness, beam direction, field size, and irradiation site are also considered in VirtualDose-IR. The software has been implemented using the ‘Software as a Service (SaaS)’ delivery concept permitting simultaneous multi-user, multi-platform access without requiring local installation. The patient doses resulting from different target sites and patient populations were reported using the VirtualDose-IR system. The patient doses under different source to surface distances (SSD) and beam angles calculated by VirtualDose-IR and Monte Carlo simulations were compared. For most organs, the dose differences between VirtualDose-IR results and Monte Carlo results were less than 0.3 mGy at 15 000 mGy * cm2 kerma-area product (KAP). The organ dose results were compared with measurement data previously reported in literatures. The doses to organs that were located within the irradiation field match closely with experimental measurement data. The differences in the effective dose values between calculated using VirtualDose-IR and those measured were less than 2.5%. The dose errors of most organs between VirtualDose-IR and literature results were less than 40%. These results validate the accuracy of organ doses reported by VirtualDose-IR. With the inclusion of pre-specified clinical IR examination parameters (such as beam direction, target location, field of view and beam quality) and the latest anatomically realistic patient phantoms in Monte Carlo simulations, VirtualDose-IR provides users with accurate dose information in order to systematically compare, evaluate, and optimize IR plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In present study, a history analysis and review of last 30 years for U.S. naval ship concept design development trend is proposed. Based on the development of naval ship concept design model history, the three features of development process are further summarized. The first is that model-based system engineering (MBSE) becomes the basic of naval ship concept design, while the second one is that the multi-discipline crossing and combination becomes a general innovation model. And the third one is that systematization oriented naval system integration is the developing goal. Some detailed examples are presented to illustrate these three characteristics. Finally, the technology difficulties in naval ship concept design are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]