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Land use in Hunan Province can share the common challenges on land space protection and development in China. The multifunctional land can be expected to solve the shortage and weak functionality of land resources. Taking Hunan Province as the research object, this article aims to construct a multifunctional evaluation index system using the land use multifunctional mechanism of "element structure space function". Land use multifunctional level was evaluated using entropy and TOPSIS, according to the spatial perspective of "Production-living-ecosystem". At the same time, spatial analysis was used to clarify the evolution characteristics of land use patterns in the region from 2000 to 2020. For example, the land use spatial transfer model and land use dynamic degree were then selected using ArcGIS software. Finally, a systematic investigation was made to explore the dynamic relationship between the evolution of land use spatial pattern and functional transformation using the dual perspective of "space+function". The results show that there were significant fluctuations in the spatial pattern of land use in Hunan Province from 2000 to 2020, where the production and ecological spaces were ever shrinking to expand the living spaces; Among them, the major characteristics were attributed to the significant expansion of living space and frequent conversion between production and ecological space. The main factors were obtained on the spatial fluctuations and reorganization of land use. 2) The regional distribution pattern and production space were distributed mainly in the central area of Changde, Yiyang, and Yueyang in the northern part of the province, as well as the border of Hengyang, Loudi, Shaoyang, and Yongzhou in the central part; The living space was distributed in the core distribution area centered around the Changsha Zhuzhou Xiangtan urban agglomeration and the central urban areas of each city; The ecological space shared the widest distribution area, particularly in the hilly and mountainous areas of the western and southwestern parts of the province, as well as in the Dongting Lake water area located in the northern part of the province; There was the more severe variation in the land use pattern evolution of the surrounding Changsha Zhuzhou Xiangtan area, followed by the mountainous areas on the east, west, and south sides; The dynamic degree results show that there was an upward trend for the overall dynamic change rate of land use. 3) The level of land use in the "Production-living-ecosystem" functions showed an increasing trend per year, with the highest ecological function score and the most significant changes, followed by the production function. Furthermore, the level of land use tended to stabilize during fluctuations. The living function was the lowest, indicating an increasing trend each year; The horizontal differences among regions were shifted from the low to high level relative equilibrium. 4) There was a significant correlation between the land use spatial pattern and functional transformation, especially in the temporal patterns. Finally, a beneficial attempt was made to explore the relationship between them using the multifunctional mechanism of "space+function" in land use; Therefore, it is necessary to further combine the land multifunctional measurement under the "one to many" mechanism, in order to more accurately identify the interrelationships among the "three living" spaces and functions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transition from old to new economic drivers (TONED) is of great significance for optimizing economic structures. Using a combination of methods including entropy weight technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution, geospatial analysis, and optimal parameter geodetector, this study investigates the patterns and mechanisms of China's TONED in the prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2020. The findings reveal that (1) the TONED exhibited a spatial distribution characterized by higher levels in the east and lower levels in the west, along with a pyramidal hierarchy of levels. The distribution of hot and cold spots roughly followed the Heihe-Yulin line. (2) The informatization levels, openness to the outside world, and urbanization played a dominant role in the TONED. The types of dual-factor interactions exhibited both dual-factor enhancement and non-linear enhancement effects. (3) The eastern and central regions were more likely to promote the TONED through enhanced informatization levels, whereas the western region relied more on increasing openness. This study finds that the TONED results from the combined effects of three geographical natures, each playing a distinct role. The recommendations provided can serve as a reference for China and other developing countries to implement the TONED in the context of deglobalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Objective] It reveals the spatial distribution of carbon flow and the key path of carbon element transfer in Bin County, grasps the existing problems of Bin County's Production-Living-Ecological (PLE) space ecological environment, and then provides theoretical support for the future low-carbon rural planning and land-use resilience planning and management decisions in Bin County area. [Methods] Bin County was taken as an example. The overall metabolic network model of rural carbon elements' was constructed to identify and master the evolution law of the PLE spatial pattern, to quantitatively measure the characteristics of carbon sources, carbon sinks and the spatial-temporal dynamic changes of carbon elements in Bin County. [Results] (1) The predominant use of land continued to be for cultivation, while other types of land use displayed varying degrees of change, impacting the ecological environment. (2) Bin County's expanding residential areas had resulted in an initial surge, followed by a decrease in overall carbon emissions. In 2010, carbon emissions of Bin County spiked to 3.07 times of their previous levels, marking a crescendo. In 2020. the emissions of Bin County decreased by 2.25 million tons. The increase in the carbon sink was associated with the alteration in the area of the ecological space. (3) The spatial distribution of high carbon sink and source density mainly concentrated in the central and western parts of Bin County. The cultivated land production space and urban living space were the key components of carbon transfer in the two periods, respectively, and the mutual carbon transfer between the two land uses was also the dominant transfer path in different periods. [Conclusion] The spatial distribution of carbon flow and key paths of carbon element transfer in Bin County mainly concentrate in the areas with rapid urbanization process, where the ecological environment has serious problems. In the future, land use elasticity planning can promote regional sustainable development by formulating sustainable rural low-carbon emission reduction strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the influence of global climate change, the climatic conditions of China's major agricultural regions have changed significantly over the last half-century, affecting regional grain production levels. With its favorable conditions for agricultural activities, China's central region has been a strategic location for grain production since ancient times and has assumed an essential responsibility for maintaining national grain security. However, the key concerns of this study are whether the national grain security pattern is stable and whether it might be affected by global climate change (especially climate instability and increased risks in recent years). Therefore, the present study collected grain production data and used descriptive statistical and geospatial analyses to reveal the trend and spatiotemporal pattern of grain production in China's central region from 2010 to 2020. Then, a further analysis was conducted by combining meteorological data with a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model to investigate the relationship between spatial differences in the output per unit of the grain sown area (OPUGSA). The findings were as follows: (1) The overall development trend of grain production in China's central region from 2010 to 2020 revealed a positive overall trend in grain production, with notable differences in growth rates between northern and southern provinces. (2) Most regions in the southern part of the central region from 2015 to 2020 showed varying degrees of total output of grain (TOG) and OPUGSA reduction, possibly affected by the effects of the anomalies for global climate change and a strong El Niño effect in 2015. (3) Low-low (L-L) clusters of TOG and OPUGSA indicators were consistently in the northwest part (Shanxi) of the central region, and high-high (H-H) clusters of TOG were consistently in the central part (Henan and Anhui) of the central region, but H-H clusters of OPUGSA were not stably distributed. (4) The fitting results of the GWR model showed a better fit compared to the ordinary least squares (OLS) model; it was found that the annual average temperature (AAT) had the greatest impact on OPUGSA, followed by annual sunshine hours (ASH) and annual precipitation (AP) last. The spatiotemporal analysis identified distinct clusters of productivity indicators. It suggested an expanding range of climate impact possibilities, particularly in exploring climate-resilient models of grain production, emphasizing the need for targeted adaptation strategies to bolster resilience and ensure agricultural security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on five periods of Landsat remote sensing data from 1980 to 2020, this study constructs a landscape ecological risk-ecosystem service value evaluation model and integrates it with a geodetector model to analyse the environmental benefits of the development of the "production–living–ecological space" pattern and its driving factors in the Xuzhou planning area. The results of the study are as follows: (1) Over the past 40 years, the expansion of living spaces has significantly encroached upon adjacent agricultural production areas and ecological spaces, such as forests and grasslands. Specifically, the areas of agricultural land, forests, and grassland have been diminished by 277.39 km2, 23.8 km2 and 12.93 km2, respectively; in contrast, urban and rural living spaces have increased by 238.62 km2 and 58.92 km2, alongside a rise in industrial production areas, water bodies, and other ecological spaces. (2) Throughout the 40-year period, both the landscape ecological risk (ERI) and ecosystem service value (ESV) in the study area have shown a decreasing trend. The proportion of high- and medium-high-risk areas of the ERI have decreased by 5.19% and 7.50%, respectively, while low, lower, and medium ecological risk areas have increased by 6.40%, 3.22% and 3.07%, respectively. In addition, low-ESV areas have increased by 14.22%, while the proportion of high- and medium-high-ESV areas have decreased by 1.16%. (3) There is a significant positive spatial correlation between the ERI and ESV. Regions with dense ecological spaces comprising forests, water bodies, and grasslands, particularly in the northeastern part of the Jiawang District and the southeastern part of the Tongshan District, demonstrate superior regional ecosystem service quality. The ERI and ESV are dominated by "high–high" and "low–high" aggregation. Conversely, in the southwestern part of the study area, the expansion of living space has led to the transformation of some agricultural land, forest land, and grassland into less risky construction land, resulting in a decline in the quality of regional ecosystem services. The local spatial correlation between the ERI and ESV changed from "high–high", "low–low", "low–high" agglomeration to "low–low" agglomeration. (4) Key factors influencing the spatial differentiation of the "production–living–ecological space" include the GDP, population density, soil type, and the distance to towns and roads. Among these, the interaction between population density and soil type has the most significant effect on the changes in the pattern of the "production–living–ecological space". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the influence of global climate change, the climatic conditions of China's major agricultural regions have changed significantly over the last half-century, affecting regional grain production levels. With its favorable conditions for agricultural activities, China's central region has been a strategic location for grain production since ancient times and has assumed an essential responsibility for maintaining national grain security. However, the key concerns of this study are whether the national grain security pattern is stable and whether it might be affected by global climate change (especially climate instability and increased risks in recent years). Therefore, the present study collected grain production data and used descriptive statistical and geospatial analyses to reveal the trend and spatiotemporal pattern of grain production in China's central region from 2010 to 2020. Then, a further analysis was conducted by combining meteorological data with a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model to investigate the relationship between spatial differences in the output per unit of the grain sown area (OPUGSA). The findings were as follows: (1) The overall development trend of grain production in China's central region from 2010 to 2020 revealed a positive overall trend in grain production, with notable differences in growth rates between northern and southern provinces. (2) Most regions in the southern part of the central region from 2015 to 2020 showed varying degrees of total output of grain (TOG) and OPUGSA reduction, possibly affected by the effects of the anomalies for global climate change and a strong El Niño effect in 2015. (3) Low-low (L-L) clusters of TOG and OPUGSA indicators were consistently in the northwest part (Shanxi) of the central region, and high-high (H-H) clusters of TOG were consistently in the central part (Henan and Anhui) of the central region, but H-H clusters of OPUGSA were not stably distributed. (4) The fitting results of the GWR model showed a better fit compared to the ordinary least squares (OLS) model; it was found that the annual average temperature (AAT) had the greatest impact on OPUGSA, followed by annual sunshine hours (ASH) and annual precipitation (AP) last. The spatiotemporal analysis identified distinct clusters of productivity indicators. It suggested an expanding range of climate impact possibilities, particularly in exploring climate-resilient models of grain production, emphasizing the need for targeted adaptation strategies to bolster resilience and ensure agricultural security.

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Based on panel data on tourism and related industries for 30 Chinese provinces from 2008 to 2019, this paper uses tourism consumption stripping coefficients, spatial autocorrelation models and spatial lag models to analyze the differences in carbon productivity in China's tourism industry over time and space and the factors influencing them. The research shows:(1) From 2008 to 2019, the overall carbon productivity of China's tourism industry has shown an increasing trend. However, the spatial distribution is uneven, generally showing the spatial pattern of high in the east and low in the west, and there is a trend of expansion to the middle and west. (2) There is a strong positive spatial autocorrelation in the carbon productivity of China's tourism industry, and the agglomeration in the local space is stronger than the heterogeneity. The "hot spot" areas (H-H type) are mainly adjacent to the eastern coastal areas, while the "cold spot" areas (L-L type) are mainly located in the central and western regions. (3) The degree of economic development, technological innovation and market size have a significant negative effect on carbon productivity in tourism, and government intervention has a non-significant negative effect and industry structure has a non-significant positive effect. Finally, we propose countermeasures to improve the carbon efficiency of China's tourism industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, researchers have proposed to leverage technology-supported data (log files) to investigate temporal and sequential patterns of interaction behaviors in learning processes. There are two major challenges to be addressed: clarifying the positioning of interaction levels and identifying the evolution of the interaction action patterns in learning processes, particularly for students with differing achievements. This paper explores the use of sequential pattern mining to address the evolution of student action patterns in Massive Private Online Courses (MPOCs) and compare these patterns between different achievement groups. The study was conducted with first-year undergraduate computer science students enrolled in a computer application course at a traditional open university in one of the Chinese provinces (N = 1375). The results showed the development of various action patterns in each phase of the course and the distinct action patterns for high-achieving and low-achieving students. The findings of study provide a new perspective for instructors and students to understand interaction patterns at the fine-grained level, and can help instructional designers develop learner-cantered courses and platforms to improve online learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulating the surface instability of thin film/substrate structures has been successfully applied to prepare new ductile electronic devices. However, such electronic devices need to be subjected to external loads during operation, which can easily induce delamination of the thin-film electronic device from the substrate. This study aims to investigate the instability characteristics of hard films on flexible substrate surfaces from theoretical analysis and numerical simulation perspectives. Considering finite-thickness substrates, this paper establishes theoretical models for pure bending, bent wrinkle, partial delamination, and total delamination buckling of film/substrate structures based on the nonlinear Euler–Bernoulli beam theory and the principle of minimum energy; then the effects of material and geometric parameters of the structure, interfacial adhesion strength, and pre-strain on the evolutionary path of the four patterns are discussed. The study results show that: the greater Young's modulus of the substrate is, the larger the parameter region where partial delamination of the film/substrate structure occurs, and the smaller the parameter region where bent wrinkle occurs. By varying Young's modulus, thickness of the film and substrate, interfacial adhesion coefficient, and pre-strain, the buckling pattern of the structure can be predicted and regulated. The parametric design intervals for each pattern are summarized in the phase diagram. The results of this paper provide theoretical support for the design and reliability evaluation of flexible electronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complex and volatile international landscape has significantly impacted global grain supply security. This study uses a complex network analysis model to examine the evolution and trends of the global major grain trade from 1990 to 2020, focusing on network topology, centrality ranking, and community structure. There are three major findings. First, the global major grain trade network has expanded in scale, with a growing emphasis on diversification and balance. During the study period, the United States, Canada, China, and Brazil were the core nodes of the network. Grain-exporting countries were mainly situated in Asia, the Americas, and Europe, and importing countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Second, a significant increase in the number of high centrality countries with high export capacity occurred, benefiting from natural advantages such as fertile land and favorable climates. Third, the main global grain trade network is divided into four communities, with the Americas-Europe community being the largest and most widespread. The formation of the community pattern was influenced by geographic proximity, driven by the core exporting countries. Therefore, the world needs to enhance the existing trade model, promote the multi-polarization of the grain trade network, and establish a global vision for the future community. Countries and regions should participate actively in global grain trade security governance and institutional reform, expand trade links with other countries, and optimize import and export policies to reduce trade risks.

Territorial space pattern and functional evolution are of the practical significance to alleviate the territorial conflicts. This study aims to explore the interactive mechanisms between territorial space pattern and function. Geospatial diagrams and kernel density models were employed to analyze the spatiotemporal features of territorial space pattern and functional evolution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2000 to 2020. Additionally, the bivariate space autocorrelation models were utilized to identify their response to the territorial space pattern and functional evolution. The results indicated: ① The urban space was expanded by 29,559.54 km² in the study area over two decades, leading to the reductions of 25,162.63 and 3,268.36 km² in the agricultural and ecological spaces. The exchange and internal restructure of agricultural and ecological spaces dominated in the evolution of territorial space pattern. The rate of change in the territorial space pattern exhibited a regional differentiation pattern, where the upstream region evolved faster than the middle and downstream. ② The mean values of urban, agricultural, and ecological functions increased from 0.129, 0.287, and 0.646 to 0.343, 0.456, and 0.698, respectively. The territorial space functions in the middle and downstream regions was driven by urban and agricultural functions, while in the upstream region, it was dominated by ecological functions and elevated agricultural functions. There were the regional differences in the intensity of territorial space function, where the downstream region surpassed the middle and the upstream regions. ③ A bidirectional nonlinear relationship was found in the territorial space pattern and functional evolution. Urban space expansion and the functional enlargement showed a positive space correlation characterized by “both increasing.” Conversely, the conflict of agricultural and ecological spaces was negatively correlated with the their functions, indicating a “one decrease, one increase” space pattern. There was the higher level of response in the territorial space pattern and functional evolution in the upstream and downstream regions, but the lower in the middle region. The trend was attribute to the siphon effect of urban and agricultural functions from the upstream region, and the spillover effect of ecological functions from the downstream region. Some recommendations were proposed to focus on enhancing, optimizing, and expanding territorial space functions, in order to promote the sustainable and balanced development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. A complementary, integrated, and coordinated territorial space pattern can also be achieved in the urban development, agricultural preservation, and ecological restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed the spatial-temporal change pattern and underlying factors in production-living-ecological space (PLES) of Nanchong City, China, over the past 20 years using historical land use data (2000, 2010, 2020). A land use transfer matrix was calculated from the historical land use maps, and spatial analysis was conducted to analyze changes in the land use dynamics degree, standard deviation ellipse, and center of gravity. The results showed that there was a rapid spatial evolution of the PLES in Nanchong from 2000 to 2010, followed by a stabilization in the second decade. The transfer of ecological-production space occurred mainly in the Jialing and Yilong River basins, while the reduction of production space and the increase of living space were most prominent in the intersection of three districts (Shunqing, Jialing, and Gaoping districts). The return of production-ecological space was observed in the south and northeast of Yingshan, and there was little notable transfer of other types. The distribution of production space in Nanchong evolved in a north-south to east-west trend, with the center of gravity moving from Yilong to Peng'an County. The living space and production space expanded in a north-south direction, and the center of gravity position was in Nanbu, indicating a more balanced growth or decrease in the last 20 years. The changes in the spatial-temporal pattern of PLES in Nanchong were attributed to the intertwined factors of national policies, economic development, population growth, and the natural environment. This study introduced a novel approach towards rational planning of land resources in Nanchong, which may facilitate more sustainable urban planning and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on studying the spatial distribution and evolution of the aquaculture industry in Jiangsu, a significant coastal province in China, within the context of the blue transformation. By collecting spatial data on the aquaculture industry and using ArcGIS software, this article analyses the characteristics of spatial changes and the driving forces behind them in Jiangsu’s aquaculture industry while providing predictions for future pattern evolution. The findings reveal that the overall distribution of the aquaculture industry in Jiangsu Province exhibits strong directionality but weak density, primarily oriented in the northwest–southeast direction. There is an evident trend of the industry shifting from the northern to the western regions and from the central to the northwest areas of the province. This indicates that initially, the aquaculture industry was primarily concentrated in the inland regions, while marine aquaculture gradually influenced the industry structure after 2010. Although the aquaculture industry shows signs of diversification, industry agglomeration is only observed in approximately 30.8% of the cities that exhibit a positive spatial correlation, which is a relatively small proportion compared to the total number of cities. However, despite the overall negative correlation in spatial distribution, the absolute difference between Moran’s I of all cities and zero is less than 0.4. This suggests that the spatial differences are not significant, regardless of the spatial autocorrelation characteristics of the overall distribution of a city. Based on the findings, this article recommends the urgent need for the development of policies that promote industry agglomeration in order to achieve effective regulation and pollution control in aquaculture.

Based on five periods of Landsat remote sensing data from 1980 to 2020, this study constructs a landscape ecological risk-ecosystem service value evaluation model and integrates it with a geodetector model to analyse the environmental benefits of the development of the “production–living–ecological space” pattern and its driving factors in the Xuzhou planning area. The results of the study are as follows: (1) Over the past 40 years, the expansion of living spaces has significantly encroached upon adjacent agricultural production areas and ecological spaces, such as forests and grasslands. Specifically, the areas of agricultural land, forests, and grassland have been diminished by 277.39 km2, 23.8 km2 and 12.93 km2, respectively; in contrast, urban and rural living spaces have increased by 238.62 km2 and 58.92 km2, alongside a rise in industrial production areas, water bodies, and other ecological spaces. (2) Throughout the 40-year period, both the landscape ecological risk (ERI) and ecosystem service value (ESV) in the study area have shown a decreasing trend. The proportion of high- and medium-high-risk areas of the ERI have decreased by 5.19% and 7.50%, respectively, while low, lower, and medium ecological risk areas have increased by 6.40%, 3.22% and 3.07%, respectively. In addition, low-ESV areas have increased by 14.22%, while the proportion of high- and medium-high-ESV areas have decreased by 1.16%. (3) There is a significant positive spatial correlation between the ERI and ESV. Regions with dense ecological spaces comprising forests, water bodies, and grasslands, particularly in the northeastern part of the Jiawang District and the southeastern part of the Tongshan District, demonstrate superior regional ecosystem service quality. The ERI and ESV are dominated by “high–high” and “low–high” aggregation. Conversely, in the southwestern part of the study area, the expansion of living space has led to the transformation of some agricultural land, forest land, and grassland into less risky construction land, resulting in a decline in the quality of regional ecosystem services. The local spatial correlation between the ERI and ESV changed from “high–high”, “low–low”, “low–high” agglomeration to “low–low” agglomeration. (4) Key factors influencing the spatial differentiation of the “production–living–ecological space” include the GDP, population density, soil type, and the distance to towns and roads. Among these, the interaction between population density and soil type has the most significant effect on the changes in the pattern of the “production–living–ecological space”.

Based on the "Production-Living-Ecological Space" evaluation system, we hereby form its functional index and take the results of corresponding functional measurement to analyze the spatial pattern, functional evolution, and coupling characteristics of the "Production-Living-Ecological Space" of the Yangtze Delta Region. The results show that: (1) From the spatial pattern, the production space is mainly distributed in the plain areas. The living space is concentrated in the dense urban areas along the Yangtze River, the East Sea, and the East Jiangsu–Gansu Line. The ecological space is concentrated in mountainous hill areas. (2) From the spatial transformation, production space expands slightly, living space continues to expand, and ecological space shrinks significantly. (3) The functionality of "Production-Living-Ecological Space" exhibits a high level in hilly mountainous areas and a low level in plains, with an overall downward trend. Notably, the core cities within the Yangtze Delta Region have experienced the most significant decline in functionality. (4) The natural environment is the decisive factor for the overall pattern of "Production-Living-Ecological Space", while economic and social development is the core driving force of the evolution of the spatial pattern, and regional integration is the catalyst of the evolution of the spatial pattern. (5) The coupling coordination of "production-ecology" is exceptionally strong, with the living function holding an overwhelmingly dominant position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the land use data of phase 4 of Qinghai Province from 1990 to 2020, the paper built a “production-living-ecological” space classification system and explored the spatial-temporal evolution and influencing factors of the “production-living-ecological” spatial pattern in Qinghai Province. The results show that from 1990 to 2020, all spatial types in Qinghai Province have different degrees of mutual transformation, from 2010 to 2020, the overall performance is characterized by a shift from potential space to production ecological space and ecological space, as well as the mutual transfer between production ecological space and ecological space, elevation and slope have greater influence to the spatial type distribution. As of the year of 2020, the proportion of production ecological space area in Qinghai Province is the highest, with an area of 408 011.90 km² and the production-living space area is 1 769.47 km². The trend of fragmentation and complexity of the spatial landscape pattern of the “production-living-ecological” in Qinghai Province has slowed down over the past 30 years, with a decrease in heterogeneity and an increase in connectivity. Economic scale, urbanization level, transportation conditions and carbon emission intensity are the main influencing factors of the spatial pattern of the “production-living-ecological” in Qinghai Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vertebrate groups have evolved strikingly diverse color patterns. However, it remains unknown to what extent the diversification of such patterns has been shaped by the proximate, developmental mechanisms that regulate their formation. While these developmental mechanisms have long been inaccessible empirically, here we take advantage of recent insights into rodent pattern formation to investigate the role of development in shaping pattern diversification across rodents. Based on a broad survey of museum specimens, we first establish that various rodents have independently evolved diverse patterns consisting of longitudinal stripes, varying across species in number, color, and relative positioning. We then interrogate this diversity using a simple model that incorporates recent molecular and developmental insights into stripe formation in African striped mice. Our results suggest that, on the one hand, development has facilitated pattern diversification: The diversity of patterns seen across species can be generated by a single developmental process, and small changes in this process suffice to recapitulate observed evolutionary changes in pattern organization. On the other hand, development has constrained diversification: Constraints on stripe positioning limit the scope of evolvable patterns, and although pattern organization appears at first glance phylogenetically unconstrained, development turns out to impose a cryptic constraint. Altogether, this work reveals that pattern diversification in rodents can in part be explained by the underlying development and illustrates how pattern formation models can be leveraged to interpret pattern evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A land pattern change represents a globally significant trend with implications for the environment, climate and societal well-being. While various methods have been developed to predict land change, our understanding of the underlying change processes remains inadequate. To address this issue, we investigate the suitability of the two-dimensional kinetic Ising model (IM), an idealized model from statistical mechanics, for simulating land change dynamics. We test the IM on a variety of patterns, each with different focus land type. Specifically, we investigate four sites characterized by distinct patterns, presumably driven by different physical processes. Each site is observed on eight occasions between 2001 and 2019. Given the observed pattern at the time ti we find two parameters of the IM such that the model-evolved land pattern at ti+1 resembles the observed land pattern at that time. The data support simulating seven such transitions per site. Our findings indicate that the IM produces approximate matches to the observed patterns in terms of layout, composition, texture and patch size distributions. Notably, the IM simulations even achieve a high degree of cell-scale pattern accuracy in two of the sites. Nevertheless, the IM has certain limitations, including its inability to model linear features, account for the formation of new large patches and handle pattern shifts.

Carbon emission has been posed a great challenge on the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. Low-carbon spatial pattern can be optimized to construct the national evolution of carbon emission from land use. In this study, the direct-, indirect-, and net carbon emissions were calculated for the land use in Hebei Province of China from 2000 to 2020, according to the carbon emission coefficients of land use types, energy consumption, and agricultural activities. The spatial pattern evolution was also achieved using GIS software and the PLUS model. Three development scenarios of land use patterns were simulated in the study area in 2030 and 2060. The carbon emissions were then calculated under different scenarios of ecosystem carbon sequestration management. The results were as follows: The direct carbon emissions from land use were remained basically stable at −2.43 million −2.5 million t/a in the study period, indicating the carbon absorption. Indirect- and net Carbon emissions from land use showed a continuous increasing trend ranging from 86.198 million t in 2000 to 267.142 million t in 2020. But the increasing speed decreased outstandingly, whereas, the net carbon emissions from land use depended mainly on the carbon emissions from energy consumption. There was the basically stable spatial distribution of grid units at the various levels of carbon emission. Specifically, the grid units of carbon absorption were concentrated in the Taihang Mountain area of Yanshan Mountain, while the grid units of low net carbon emission were distributed mainly in the southeast plain, the medium net carbon emission was found in the rural residential areas and the Bohai Rim region, and the high net carbon emission was in the surrounding cities of Shijiazhuang, Langfang, Baoding and some county central cities. There was a shrinking trend of space in the carbon absorption area and medium net carbon emission grid units. By contrast, an expanding trend in space was found in the low, medium high, and high net carbon emission grid units. The largest proportion was accounted in the carbon absorption areas and low net carbon emission grid units in the study area. But the net carbon emission often occurred in the middle and high net carbon emission areas and high net carbon emission grid units. The number of forest land, grassland, and unused land were remained basically stable under the natural development scenario. The number of cultivated land types was continued to decrease, whereas, there was an increase in the number of construction land and water areas. A wider distribution of forest and grassland was found to significant promote the number of waters around Bohai Sea under the priority development scenario of carbon sequestration, compared with the natural one. Furthermore, the scope of outward expansion shared the central cities of Shijiazhuang, Tangshan, Baoding City, whereas, the other big cities were shrunk slightly in space, indicating the intensive effect of construction land. The net carbon emissions of land use in 2030 and 2060 were 67.42% and 38.16% of those in 2020, respectively, under the natural development scenario. The direct carbon emissions from land use in 2030 and 2060 increased by 1.13% and 2.99%, respectively, under the priority development scenario of carbon increase. Alternatively, the indirect carbon emissions from land use in 2030 and 2060 decreased by 4.55% and 10.40%, respectively, under the priority development scenario of carbon emission reduction. The priority net carbon emissions of carbon emission reduction decreased by 4.64% and 10.85%, respectively, compared with the natural development scenario. Among the three scenarios, the priority scenario of carbon reduction presented the least net carbon emission from land use. The finding can also provide a strong reference to analyze evolution patterns of carbon emission for the carbon neutral target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featuring complex and fractured terrain, the Loess hilly and gully regions suffer poor grain production capacity. The behavior of farmers, the major users of agricultural production space, significantly influences the agricultural production space. Hence, it is essential to explore the evolution rules of the agricultural production space under the influence of farmer behavior and reveal the influencing mechanism of agricultural production space change, which will facilitate the promotion of ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Relying on six-stage remote sensing images of the Yanhe River Basin from 1995 to 2018, this study utilized a land use dynamic index, transfer matrix and landscape pattern index to analyze the spatial pattern evolution of agricultural production in the Yanhe River Basin. Furthermore, the geographic detector model was applied to quantitatively analyze the influencing factors of the spatial pattern evolution of agricultural production. The results demonstrated the following: (1) From 1995 to 2018, the overall area of cultivated land in the Yanhe River Basin decreased by 927.02 km2, with a change degree of 21.07%. The spatial structure of agricultural production changed, mainly transferring the cultivated land to woodland and grassland. (2) The spatial form of agricultural production has changed from fragmentation to regularity, and the complexity of the production space shows a trend of first increasing and then decreasing. (3) The evolution of the spatial pattern of agricultural production was affected by multiple factors of farmer behavior, where significant interactive enhancement effects existed. Specifically, labor input was the dominant factor affecting the overall scale of the production space, with an influence value of 0.202; fertilization input and cultivated land transfer were the key factors affecting the spatial distribution of production, with influence values of 0.264 and 0.242, respectively; income level and social interaction were the base factors affecting the spatial form of production, with influence values of 0.558 and 0.438, respectively. The research results provide scientific support for the improvement of agricultural production quality and the spatial evolution mechanism of agricultural production in the Yanhe River Basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new crown pneumonia epidemic has caused a dramatic decline in the level of global tourism trade. It is particularly important to explore the characteristics, regularities and driving factors of the temporal and spatial evolution of tourism trade in order to achieve a rapid recovery of global tourism trade. The paper selects tourism trade data from 140 countries (regions) worldwide over the past 20 years, uses spatial analysis techniques to characterize the temporal and spatial patterns of global tourism trade, and examines the driving factors and spatial heterogeneity of global tourism trade exports through geographic detectors and geographic weighted regression models. The results reveal that: (1) The center of global tourism trade has gradually shifted to Asia, forming three major markets in North America, Europe and Asia. (2) The temporal evolution of global tourism trade shows the characteristics of turbulent growth, short-term fluctuations and strong sensitivity. (3) The intensity of spatial agglomeration in global tourism trade import and export patterns first increased and then decreased. (4) Tourism connection channels, including the level of air transportation and Internet usage rate, are the leading factors stimulating the exports of global tourism trade. (5) There is spatial heterogeneity in the impact of influencing factors on tourism trade exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Yunnan Province, as a typical plateau and mountainous region, has diverse geological environment, fragile ecological environment, obvious constraints on natural resources, and prominent spatial structure problems caused by the rapid development of urbanization in mountainous areas. Combined with the geographical environment and urban development characteristics of the plateau mountain in central Yunnan, a comprehensive spatial evaluation model of plateau mountain cities is constructed from three aspects: spatial structure, spatial connection and land use expansion. The spatial pattern evolution characteristics and driving mechanism of central Yunnan urban agglomeration in 1994, 2002, 2010 and 2018 were studied. The results show that from 1994 to 2018, urban agglomeration gradually presents a "single core structure" relationship with high primacy and high compactness, while urban land use expansion shows a land use change process of "rapid regular expansion-rapid irregular expansion-slow regular expansion". The morphological characteristics of land use also correspond to three stages of "single-point extension-multi-point extension-single-point filling". The hierarchical structure of urban agglomeration has changed from "single center" to "one principal and many deputy". The evolution of the spatial pattern of urban agglomeration is mainly affected by topography, traffic road network, economic industrial structure and government regulation and control factors, showing the characteristics of government-led, economic-driven and environmental constraints. Innovating the concept of development, building an innovative economic complex, restructuring and optimizing road space resources, strengthening the flow of resource elements, perfecting rigid ecological protection planning to strengthen constraints, and strengthening the overall management and control of the "three line" should be advocated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To overcome the problems of low accuracy of prediction results and high energy consumption in the prediction process existing in traditional forecasting methods, a prediction method of urban landscape pattern evolution based on Markov process was designed in this study. On the basis of designing the prediction principle of urban landscape pattern evolution, patch average area, patch type area, maximum patch index, patch number, and landscape percentage were selected to describe the patch types in landscape space, and then the landscape index was calculated. Based on this, the specific evolution of urban landscape pattern is predicted based on Markov process. The experimental results show that the prediction accuracy of the method is high, and the energy consumption of the prediction process is low, which proves that the method achieves the design expectation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featuring complex and fractured terrain, the Loess hilly and gully regions suffer poor grain production capacity. The behavior of farmers, the major users of agricultural production space, significantly influences the agricultural production space. Hence, it is essential to explore the evolution rules of the agricultural production space under the influence of farmer behavior and reveal the influencing mechanism of agricultural production space change, which will facilitate the promotion of ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Relying on six-stage remote sensing images of the Yanhe River Basin from 1995 to 2018, this study utilized a land use dynamic index, transfer matrix and landscape pattern index to analyze the spatial pattern evolution of agricultural production in the Yanhe River Basin. Furthermore, the geographic detector model was applied to quantitatively analyze the influencing factors of the spatial pattern evolution of agricultural production. The results demonstrated the following: (1) From 1995 to 2018, the overall area of cultivated land in the Yanhe River Basin decreased by 927.02 km2, with a change degree of 21.07%. The spatial structure of agricultural production changed, mainly transferring the cultivated land to woodland and grassland. (2) The spatial form of agricultural production has changed from fragmentation to regularity, and the complexity of the production space shows a trend of first increasing and then decreasing. (3) The evolution of the spatial pattern of agricultural production was affected by multiple factors of farmer behavior, where significant interactive enhancement effects existed. Specifically, labor input was the dominant factor affecting the overall scale of the production space, with an influence value of 0.202; fertilization input and cultivated land transfer were the key factors affecting the spatial distribution of production, with influence values of 0.264 and 0.242, respectively; income level and social interaction were the base factors affecting the spatial form of production, with influence values of 0.558 and 0.438, respectively. The research results provide scientific support for the improvement of agricultural production quality and the spatial evolution mechanism of agricultural production in the Yanhe River Basin.

The availability of massive temporal multivariate data provides unprecedented opportunities to analyze anomaly pattern evolution. However, due to the complicated relationships and dynamic temporality, it is a challenging problem to efficiently reveal and perceive the evolution of abnormal patterns. Existing methods mostly focus on the use of automated algorithms to capture anomalies, which limits the understanding of the evolutionary law. In this paper, we propose a novel visual analytics system, PEVis, to help domain experts extract four types of abnormal evolution patterns and quantitatively analyze the contribution of different features to its occurrence. By aggregating different anomaly detection algorithms, the anomalous data that deviate seriously from other densely distributed points or with small isolated clusters can be identified. A strategy for perceiving temporal multivariate data is proposed to solve the conflict between exploring the global time-varying law and local data distribution in visualization, through aligning dimension reduction space of adjacent timestamp and designing a doughnut glyph to visually display data distribution and feature contributions. Experiments on two real-world datasets, namely air quality index data and consumer price index data, demonstrate that the proposed methods can effectively reveal the seasonal variation of abnormal phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon emission of tourism transportation is one of the important factors leading to global climate change. It is of great social and economic significance to study the spatial differences and influencing factors of tourism transportation carbon emission. This paper takes 30 provincial administrative regions in China as the basic research units, then, based on the construction of measurement model for carbon emission of tourism transportation, and uses the spatial variogram, trend surface analysis and spatial measurement models, to explore the spatial and temporal pattern evolution and influencing factors of tourism transportation carbon emission. It is found as follows. 1) In the period of 2005 to 2018, the carbon emission of China's tourism transportation shows a continuous increase trend, in which the absolute difference of tourism transportation carbon emission increases gradually, and the relative difference shows the characteristics of periodic fluctuation. 2) The overall spatial differentiation of tourism transportation carbon emission is significant, showing a trend of decreasing from east to west. This is basically consistent with China's "strong east and weak west" tourism network pattern, the spatial characteristics of tourist passenger flow and direction which are along the main traffic trunks and aviation hubs. 3) There are spatial interactions and linkage effects in the carbon emissions of provincial tourism transportation in China. In general, the spatial difference tends to increase in the east-west direction, while the spatial differentiation in other directions is small. 4) The regional economic development level, the openness to foreign tourism and scale of tourists are the main factors leading to tourism transportation carbon emission. To a great extent, this has shaped the regional differentiation pattern of the carbon emission of China s tourism transportation, and the development level of service industry, tourism resource, energy intensity and energy structure have various degrees of inducing or inhibiting effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global value chains have become the core skeleton of the global economy. As a large-scale international cooperation initiative, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI hereafter) may have a significant impact on the global economic landscape. In this context, the spatiotemporal pattern and evolution of the value chain connection of the Silk Road countries and whether the BRI will promote the value chain connections between China and these countries are important research questions for understanding the changing global economic landscape. This paper employs input-output analysis, network analysis and difference-in-differences based on Propensity Score Matching (PSM-DID) to conduct an in-depth quantitative study of these questions. The results show that, first, the overall value chain connection between China and the Silk Road countries has been rising since 2001. From the perspective of geographical distribution, Southeast Asia is the highest value chain connection region with China, and the growth in the central and eastern Europe is the most significant, whereas the central Asia is the lowest value connection region. From the perspective of complex network analysis, China's position in the network of value flow among the Silk Road countries has been increasing continuously, and it has been in the lead position since 2008. Besides, the implementation of the BRI has had a significant positive influence on the overall value chain connection between China and the Silk Road countries, but this positive influence is limited to the central and eastern Europe region, whereas it is not significant in other regions. Finally, this paper suggests that to promote the development of value chain connection, the Silk Road countries need to develop more specific policies related to value chains. Policymakers need to be able to correctly identify the comparative advantages of the region and the types of value chains that are compatible with them and then find suitable partners and formulate targeted promotion policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the pattern and evolution of mangroves in the coastal wetland ecological environment can provide scientific basis for the protection and restoration of mangroves. In this paper, the remote sensing image recognition method is used to study the distribution pattern of mangroves in coastal wetland ecological environment. The spectral features, texture features and shape features of remote sensing images of mangroves are extracted. Then, the extracted remote sensing image is analyzed by fuzzy dual support vector machine, and the spatial distribution pattern of mangrove forest is obtained. By analyzing the landscape index in the spatial pattern and its variability in the spatial direction, the evolution result of the spatial pattern of mangroves is finally obtained. Experiments have proved that this method can accurately classify remote sensing images and obtain the spatial pattern distribution of mangroves. The study also found that the degree of fragmentation of mangroves is relatively high. As the number of small patches increases, the ductility and connectivity of the patches decrease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite frequent political interactions, economic cooperation between China and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries has progressed quite slowly, raising the question of why the economic cooperation of China and CEE countries stagnates and how to promote sustainable bilateral cooperation. This study explored the spatiotemporal evolution of China-CEE production cooperation and the value-added structure of bilateral exports by the long time-sequenced multi-region input-output table and methods of input-output technique. The results show that although the production cooperation intensity of China and CEE countries has been increasing in both directions, neither side currently comprises the main foreign production cooperation direction of each other, and the intensity of production cooperation remains low. From the perspective of value-added structure, foreign value-added accounts comprise the greatest proportion of exports from CEE countries to China, while a large part of China's intermediate exports go to other European countries after being imported by CEE countries, which indicates that CEE countries have played an important role of the bridge between China and Europe. States are undoubtedly important in the promotion of global value chain connections. Governments should correctly identify their own advantageous industries in global value chains and focus on extending the industrial chain to formulate cooperation plans. Strengthening the value chain link with Western European countries through production cooperation and improving the capacity of value capture are important directions for China-CEE cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in land use have posed a great challenge to the development and protection of national land space in the border areas. Taking the China-Vietnam border areas in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region as the research object, an evaluation index system was constructed in this study to deduce the multifunctional system of land utilization using “elements-structure-space-function” of the production-living-ecosystem space (PLE). The dynamic index and transition matrix model were applied to analyze the PLE evolution of the spatial pattern from 2000 to 2018. TOPSIS method and the obstacle model were adopted to measure the multifunctional level, further to diagnose the main obstacle factors. The results showed that: 1) The evolution speed of PLE spatial pattern changed from mild to accelerated fluctuation, indicating an obvious periodic characteristic . Specifically, a slow evolution period was from 2000 to 2010, while an accelerated period was from 2010 to 2018. The spatial comprehensive dynamic index of PLE increased from 0.07 to 0.20, where the mutual transfer area between spaces of the PLE was totaled 85218.32hm2 . The production space and living space increased by 1145.97hm2, and 3166.77hm2, respectively. The area of ecosystem space decreased by 4312.69hm2 . There was a much more violent evolution of land use pattern at all county-level, including Pingxiang City, Dongxing City and Fangcheng District, indicating relatively high urbanization and frequent border trade in the middle-southeast area. 2) Functional level for the land use of the PLE improved relatively fast. Specifically, the functional level of life was the highest with the comprehensive appraisal index of 0.86, increasing by 0.71 in 2000. The functional level of the production was listed as the second, with the comprehensive appraisal index increased by 0.25, an increasing rate of 69.99%. The functional level of the ecosystem was the lowest, with the comprehensive appraisal index increased by 0.13, an increasing rate of only 28.22%. There was obvious fluctuation for the functional level of the production and ecosystem. The multifunctional level of land utilization increased from 0.32 to 0.68. The multifunction of the land utilization in counties and cities changed from the low level and large gap to relatively balanced, representing “two cores and two subs” pattern. There were the same characteristics in the pattern evolution of the land utilization and multifunctional change. 3) The main obstacle factors included resource elements layout, economic development level, ecological environment quality, and border trade. In the function of life, the main obstacle factors were the low richness of tourism resources and low average tourism income in different areas. In the function of production, the main obstacle factors were the low investment in urban fixed assets and low average foreign trade in different areas. In the function of ecosystem, the main obstacle factors were the decreased forest coverage and insufficient capacity for sewage treatment. A recommendation was made to optimize the tourism resources layout, regional economic integration, and the construction of ecological civilization for a better multifunctional effect on the land utilization of the PLE in the China-Vietnam border areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Characterizing and quantifying microstructure evolution is critical to forming quantitative relationships between material processing conditions, resulting microstructure, and observed properties. Machine-learning methods are increasingly accelerating the development of these relationships by treating microstructure evolution as a pattern recognition problem, discovering relationships explicitly or implicitly. These methods often rely on identifying low-dimensional microstructural fingerprints as latent variables. However, using inappropriate latent variables can lead to challenges in learning meaningful relationships. In this work, we survey and discuss the ability of various linear and nonlinear dimensionality reduction methods including principal component analysis, autoencoders, and diffusion maps to quantify and characterize the learned latent space microstructural representations and their time evolution. We characterize latent spaces by their ability to represent high-dimensional microstructural data in terms of compression achieved as a function of the number of latent dimensions required to represent the data accurately, their accuracy based on their reconstruction performance, and the smoothness of the microstructural trajectories in latent dimension. We quantify these metrics for common microstructure evolution problems in material science including spinodal decomposition of a binary metallic alloy, thin film deposition of a binary metallic alloy, dendritic growth, and grain growth in a polycrystal. This study provides considerations and guidelines for choosing dimensionality reduction methods when considering materials problems that involve high dimensional data and a variety of features over a range of lengths and time scales. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed the spatial-temporal change pattern and underlying factors in production-living-ecological space (PLES) of Nanchong City, China, over the past 20 years using historical land use data (2000, 2010, 2020). A land use transfer matrix was calculated from the historical land use maps, and spatial analysis was conducted to analyze changes in the land use dynamics degree, standard deviation ellipse, and center of gravity. The results showed that there was a rapid spatial evolution of the PLES in Nanchong from 2000 to 2010, followed by a stabilization in the second decade. The transfer of ecological-production space occurred mainly in the Jialing and Yilong River basins, while the reduction of production space and the increase of living space were most prominent in the intersection of three districts (Shunqing, Jialing, and Gaoping districts). The return of production-ecological space was observed in the south and northeast of Yingshan, and there was little notable transfer of other types. The distribution of production space in Nanchong evolved in a north-south to east-west trend, with the center of gravity moving from Yilong to Peng'an County. The living space and production space expanded in a north-south direction, and the center of gravity position was in Nanbu, indicating a more balanced growth or decrease in the last 20 years. The changes in the spatial-temporal pattern of PLES in Nanchong were attributed to the intertwined factors of national policies, economic development, population growth, and the natural environment. This study introduced a novel approach towards rational planning of land resources in Nanchong, which may facilitate more sustainable urban planning and development., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

A land pattern change represents a globally significant trend with implications for the environment, climate and societal well-being. While various methods have been developed to predict land change, our understanding of the underlying change processes remains inadequate. To address this issue, we investigate the suitability of the two-dimensional kinetic Ising model (IM), an idealized model from statistical mechanics, for simulating land change dynamics. We test the IM on a variety of patterns, each with different focus land type. Specifically, we investigate four sites characterized by distinct patterns, presumably driven by different physical processes. Each site is observed on eight occasions between 2001 and 2019. Given the observed pattern at the time t i we find two parameters of the IM such that the model-evolved land pattern at t i +1 resembles the observed land pattern at that time. The data support simulating seven such transitions per site. Our findings indicate that the IM produces approximate matches to the observed patterns in terms of layout, composition, texture and patch size distributions. Notably, the IM simulations even achieve a high degree of cell-scale pattern accuracy in two of the sites. Nevertheless, the IM has certain limitations, including its inability to model linear features, account for the formation of new large patches and handle pattern shifts., Competing Interests: We declare we have no competing interests., (© 2023 The Authors.)

Some models in evolutionary economics rely on direct analogies to genetic evolution, assuming a population of firms with routines, technologies, and strategies on which forces of diversity generation and selection act. This narrow conception can build upon previous findings from evolutionary biology. Broader concepts of evolution allow many or just one adaptive entity, instead of necessarily requiring a population. Thus, an institution or a society can also be understood as an evolutionary entity. Both the narrow and broad approaches have been extensively used in the literature, albeit in different literature traditions. I provide an overview of the conception and development of both approaches to evolutionary modeling, and argue that a generalization is needed to realize the full potential of evolutionary modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ecological land is of great significance in safeguarding important ecological processes and providing essential ecosystem services, and the classification and evaluation of the ecosystem services of ecological land have become increasingly important in recent years. In order to change the trend of ecological land loss caused by blind economic development and to improve the regional pattern for ecological security, it is necessary to study the rational allocation of the quantitative structure and the spatial patterns of ecological land. Based on land use data of Bashang plateau in 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015, GIS (geographic information system) technology was used to analyze ecological land pattern evolution and ecosystem service values of Bashang plateau. The results were as follows: (1) The ecological land in Bashang plateau was classified into 4 types (forest, grassland, wetland and other ecological land) and 15 sub-types; the quantity of ecological land decreased from 904 500 to 881 800 hm2 during 1990- 2015 due to the decreased grassland and wetland and the increased forest and other ecological land. The quantities of forest and other ecological land increased from 275 000 and 8 300 to 324 900 and 11 300 hm2 respectively, and meanwhile the quantities of grassland and wetland decreased from 501 500 and 119 700 to 437 300 and 108 300 hm2 respectively. (2) The transfer rates of forest, other ecological land, grassland and wetland were 1.45%, 0.73%, -0.51% and -0.38% from 1990 to 2015, respectively. The dynamic degree during 1990-2000 was -0.50%, while it was 2.43% during 2000-2015, which indicated that the activity degree of ecological land in 2000-2015 was much higher than that in 1990-2000. The decrease of grassland and the increase of forest land accelerated, while the reduction of wetland slowed down, and other ecological land change increased. All of these were mainly due to a series of key ecological projects that were carried out in Bashang plateau to control sandstorm source of Tianjin and Beijing, which have led to the rapid growth of forest; meanwhile, as the climate of Bashang plateau tended to be dry after entering 21 century, as well as the unreasonable utilization of grassland and wetland resources, the areas of grassland and wetland decreased. (3) The retention land rates of forest, grassland, wetland and other ecosystem land in the study area were 63.22%, 41.23%, 34.88% and 11.90% respectively, indicating that the spatial stability of forest was the best, followed by grassland and wetland, and the stability of other ecological land was the worst. The ecological evolution process was mainly concentrated in the transfer from grassland to non-ecological land and forest, the transfer from forest to grassland, the transfer from wetland to non-ecological land and the transfer from non-ecological land to grassland and forest. The transfer from non-ecological land to grassland and forest land showed that the series of ecological construction projects had achieved initial success. (4) The ecosystem service values of ecological land decreased from 46.01×108 yuan in 1990 to 428.26×108 yuan in 2015, enlarged by 831%. The average annual growth rate of ecosystem service values increased from 15.82% during 1990-2000 to 17.37% during 2000-2015. The forest ecosystem service values were the maximum, while the other ecological land ecosystem service values were the minimum. We should continue to strengthen the construction of ecological nature preserves, use biological recovery technology and artificial replenishment such as scientific grazing, adjust the industrial structure and use other measures to restore and increase the forest, wetland and grassland ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vascular network dynamics has crucial impact on vertebrate physiology and numerous diseases are indicated by its malfunctioning. As a consequence, there is a high demand for tools facilitating the studies of the associated phenomena. However, many of them are focused strictly on the 2-D environments, similar to the ones used by in vitro research. Hence, they are rather useless for tumour development or drug interactions modelling purposes, as those processes need to be investigated in a 3-D setup. We address this issue by proposing a novel framework that allows to simulate vasculature growth and restructuration in 3 dimensions. Our solution yields morphologically accurate results, exhibiting properties found in real-world data, such as vein-artery interdigitation. Its graph-based architecture streamlines the outcome analysis and enables a straightforward way of including additional workflow extensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The compound area of mine agriculture urban is a community of resource, economy and society. In this study we took the compound area of mine agriculture urban in Pinglu District, Shuozhou City, Shanxi Province, China as the study object in order to discover the landscape type changing characteristics and pattern and analyze the driving forces from 1986 to 2013. We found that: (1) although farmland was the primary landscape type, construction land had increased obviously and destruction land also increased linearly; (2) cultivated land decreasing was mainly impacted by de-farming, construction occupation and mining destruction; (3) landscape changing types differed remarkably at different period, but generally increased, mainly from bidirectional farmland conversion to the coexistence of bidirectional farmland conversion, farmland to construction land and farmland to destruction land. Lastly, we proposed some management measures to direct landscape type changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]