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IntroductionFlight attendants, as the front-line staff in the cabin, play a crucial role in improving air travel safety. This research explores how psychological safety affects flight attendants’ adoption of mindful safety practices through voice participation. This mechanism also identifies ethical leadership and traditionality as two moderators.MethodsA self-reported questionnaire was used to collect data from 621 flight attendants in Chinese private commercial airline companies. PLS-SEM (partial least square structured equation modeling) is used to examine the hypotheses proposed in the present study.ResultsAfter data analysis, the results reveal that the underlying mechanism covering both mediating and moderating effects through which flight attendants’ voluntary and extra-role safety behavior could be improved.DiscussionThe findings extend the existing literature regarding the antecedents of flight attendants’ mindful safety practices adoption and obstacles to employee voice participation. Managerial implications are also provided in the commercial aviation industry and discussed along with future research directions.

In hyper-arid regions, soil moisture’s role in ecohydrological processes can differ significantly from that in arid or semi-arid ecosystems. We investigated the spatial–temporal dynamics of soil moisture and its relationship with groundwater depths in a 200 m × 300 m phreatophytic tamarisk stand in the lower basin of the Tarim River, a hyper-arid zone in China. Soil moisture profiles, from the surface to the water table, were derived using drilling and oven-drying techniques. Over a three-year period, the soil moisture at multiple depths was continuously monitored in a specific plot using nine frequency domain reflectometry (FDR) sensors. Our results indicate a correlation between horizontal variations in soil moisture and groundwater depths (GWDs). Nevertheless, anomalies in this correlation were observed. Variations in horizontal soil moisture were strongly influenced by the clay content in the soil, with finer soils retaining more moisture. Despite varying GWDs, soil moisture profiles remained consistent, with no distinct correlation between them. Soil moisture exhibited stability across layers, with noticeable changes only adjacent to the water table. These results imply that in hyper-arid environments, soil texture primarily governs soil moisture distribution. However, the limited spatial and temporal scopes in our dataset, constrained by the region’s inhospitable conditions, necessitate further investigation. Future work should prioritize amalgamating diverse data sources to devise a region-specific soil moisture model for in-depth analysis of hyper-arid regions.

Understanding correlations between aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) and climate change has remained a long-standing goal in ecology. Annual ANPP experienced significant interannual variations in the Eurasian steppe region (EASR) over past three decades. However, critical climate periods for annual ANPP remain poorly understood. Here, we comprehensively examined ANPP–climate relationships in the EASR on a seasonal scale from 1982 to 2013. Partial correlation coefficients were calculated between annual ANPP and seasonal climatic variables. A multiple linear regression (MLR) model was implemented between annual ANPP and three climatic factors over four seasons. For each climatic variable during each season, the relative importance for the MLR model was determined to identify critical climate periods for annual ANPP. Results demonstrated that (1) seasonal differences could be observed in response of annual ANPP to climatic variables. The influence of precipitation (PRE) on annual ANPP gradually increased from previous-year winter to summer seasons, with a diminishing effect of solar shortwave radiation (SWD), and decreased from summer to autumn with an increasing effect of SWD. Summer TMP imposed the strongest effects, followed by previous-year winter TMP. The influence of TMP exhibited only slight changes between spring and autumn. (2) PRE, TMP and SWD were crucial climatic variables affecting annual ANPP in 41%, 31% and 28%, respectively, of the EASR, especially summer PRE, summer TMP and previous-year winter SWD. The critical climate periods for annual ANPP exhibited large spatial differences in the EASR. (3) Furthermore, the effects of PRE and SWD on annual ANPP increased from the first stage (1982–1995) to the second stage (1996–2007) with a decreasing influence of TMP, and then decreased from the second stage to the third stage (2008–2013) with an increasing influence of TMP. This study could be crucial for improving vegetation productivity predictions and understanding ecosystem-climate feedbacks.

China’s Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) is the largest ecological restoration program (ERP) in the world. Since its full implementation in China in 2002, it has achieved remarkable eco-effects worldwide. However, few researchers have paid attention to the efficiency behind the ecological achievements. Understanding the eco-efficiency of the Sloping Land Conversion Program (EEoSLCP) and its spatial and temporal evolution is necessary for the design and implementation of other ERPs. Therefore, we took the counties reflecting the basic implementation units of the SLCP as the research samples, and evaluated and analyzed the EEoSLCP on the Loess Plateau (LP) and its spatial and temporal evolution based on remote sensing data and county statistics. Our results reveal that: (1) The SLCP in LP has achieved good eco-effects, but the eco-efficiency is generally low. (2) The EEoSLCP of the LP is increasing year by year in time and the spatial distribution pattern is “high in the southeast and low in the northwest” with a gradual decrease in efficiency from southeast to northwest. (3) The EEoSLCP in each county of the LP has a positive spatial autocorrelation and this correlation increases with the passage of time. (4) The EEoSLCP in each county of the LP shows relatively stable geographical spatial agglomeration characteristics of “H-H” and “L-L” in local spatial autocorrelation, and there are spatial neighboring companion effects and spatial neighboring spillover effects in the EEoSLCP in each county of the LP. (5) Natural conditions and redundancy of input and output are important reasons that affect the level of EEoSLCP. Our study will not only provide a general approach and methodological framework for evaluating the eco-efficiency of ERPs and their spatial and temporal evolution, but also provide better guidance and inspiration for the implementation of large-scale ERPs in the background of “The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration” and the “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality” strategy.

Alpine wetlands in western Sichuan plateau (WSCP) are located on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP), where the ecological environment is very sensitive to global climate change. Being naturally driven coupled with unreasonable human development activities, alpine wetlands have experienced serious ecological and environmental issues such as drought, inversion, and desertification. However, due to the limitations of data sources and calculation models, it is impossible for us to deeply understand the change mechanism and spatial difference of the ecological environment of the alpine wetland (EEAW) in previous studies. In view of this, an innovative approach for monitoring the EEAW change has been proposed in this paper. We employ the approach to perform the EEAW change trend analysis, and some meaningful characteristics were founded. Specifically, it includes the fol1owing aspects. The air temperature increase is relatively significant, while the precipitation change has obvious spatial differentiation, and even some region’s precipitation experienced a decrease especially in plot1. In Haizishan, Lugu Lake, and Bari Lake, we explored an interesting phenomenon that the precipitation increases first and then decrease, and the turning point occurred around 1999. Increases in air temperature and evaporation have aggravated the drought in high-latitude areas. The drought situation has been alleviated in high-altitude areas due to the acceleration of snow melt water. Wetland vegetation and biomass presented an overall increasing trend, but the degradation also occurs in some area, including Zoige and Lugu Lake area. The human activity disturbances of wetland degradation mainly include the settlements expansion, agricultural development, and the ecotourism prosperity. Among them, targeted poverty alleviation projects have accelerated the urbanization in WSCP, and the development of agriculture and tourism has increased the interference of wetlands. Additionally, we have used Landsat images and national wetland survey data (1999, 2013, and 2020 year) from the past two decades to verify the EEAW trend and confirm the reliability of the analysis results using this approach.

In order to reduce soil erosion and desertification, the Sloping Land Conversion Program has been conducted in China for more than 15 years, and large areas of farmland have been converted to forest and grassland. However, this large-scale vegetation-restoration project has faced some key problems (e.g. soil drying) that have limited the successful development of the current ecological-recovery policy. Therefore, it is necessary to know about the land use, vegetation, and soil, and their inter-relationships in order to identify the suitability of vegetation restoration. This study was conducted at the watershed level in the ecologically vulnerable region of the Loess Plateau, to evaluate the land suitability using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The results showed that (1) the area unsuitable for crops accounted for 73.3% of the watershed, and the main factors restricting cropland development were soil physical properties and soil nutrients; (2) the area suitable for grassland was about 86.7% of the watershed, with the remaining 13.3% being unsuitable; (3) an area of 3.95 km(2), accounting for 66.7% of the watershed, was unsuitable for forest. Overall, the grassland was found to be the most suitable land-use to support the aims of the Sloping Land Conversion Program in the Liudaogou watershed. Under the constraints of soil water shortage and nutrient deficits, crops and forests were considered to be inappropriate land uses in the study area, especially on sloping land. When selecting species for re-vegetation, non-native grass species with high water requirements should be avoided so as to guarantee the sustainable development of grassland and effective ecological functioning. Our study provides local land managers and farmers with valuable information about the inappropriateness of growing trees in the study area along with some information on species selection for planting in the semi-arid area of the Loess Plateau.

Passive daytime radiative cooling has emerged as a promising sustainable technique for meeting ever-growing demand for cooling across multiple sectors. Although a number of review articles have reported fundamental mechanisms and materials developments of daytime radiative cooling, reviews on its current and potential applications have been limited to specific scenarios such as building energy saving. Thus, to the best of our knowledge, here we summarize and discuss a comprehensive list of most current and potential applications of passive daytime radiative cooling to broaden horizons in this technology. First, from a materials perspective, we briefly summarize approaches to creating high solar reflectance and high emissivity in the atmospheric window of 8–13 µm. We then present applications in five major categories, each with several sub-categories, and discus each application with selective articles. Based on the availability of real-world demonstrations and developments in commercialization, we qualitatively assess the technology readiness levels of these applications, highlighting future directions that need more attention. This review offers one-stop access to a comprehensive summary of passive radiative cooling applications along with recent progress and future opportunities.

Abstract Photosynthesis is the most important biological process on Earth that converts solar energy to chemical energy (biomass) using sunlight as the sole energy source. The yield of photosynthesis is highly sensitive to the intensity and spectral components of light received by the photosynthetic organisms. Therefore, photon engineering has the potential to increase photosynthesis. Spectral conversion materials have been proposed for solar spectral management and widely investigated for photosynthesis by modifying the quality of light reaching the organisms since the 1990s. Such spectral conversion materials manage the photon spectrum of light by a photoconversion process, and a primary challenge faced by these materials is increasing their efficiencies. This review focuses on emerging spectral conversion materials for augmenting the photosynthesis of plants and microalgae, with a special emphasis on their fundamental design and potential applications in both greenhouse settings and microalgae cultivation systems. Finally, a discussion about the future perspectives in this field is made to overcome the remaining challenges.

Concentrated solar power (CSP) plants are generally located in solar-abundant yet hot and water-stressed locations. In such circumstances, efficient but water-intensive once-through wet cooling and water-free but inefficient air cooling are both unfavorable. Considering both thermal efficiency and water availability/temperature, recirculating evaporative cooling is a better alternative. However, evaporative cooling still loses large amounts of water into the atmosphere and thus requires a nonstop water supply. Therefore, simultaneously reducing water loss and maintaining thermal efficiency requires efficient means of supplemental cooling for CSP plants. Following our previous work on scalable radiative cooling films and a kW-scale radiative cooling system, we explore the potential of consumptive water use reduction in recirculating wet-cooled CSP plants by integrating supplemental radiative cooling and cold storage. Through modeling of a reference CSP plant with a supplemental radiative cooling system as large as the plant solar field, the results show that 40%–60% of the annual consumptive water use can be potentially reduced in the hot southwestern U.S. region with daytime-only radiative cooling, whereas the annual potential water saving can be as much as 65%–85% if the radiative cooling system works both day and night with cold storage.

Overexpression of human dynactin‐associated protein isoform a (dynAPa) transforms NIH3T3 cells. DynAPa is a single‐pass transmembrane protein with a carboxy‐terminal region exposed to the outside of cells. According to the NCBI RefSeq database, there may be two other splicing variants of the encoding gene (dynAPb and c). DynAPa and c differ in some amino‐terminal residues (NH2‐MVA in dynAPa and NH2‐MEYQLL in dynAPc). DynAPb has the same amino‐terminal residues as dynAPc, but lacks 55 residues in the intracellular region. All three isoforms have the same carboxy‐terminal region, including the transmembrane domain. Expression of mRNAs of three splicing variants was found in human cancer cell lines ACHN and Caki‐1. The subcellular localization and in vitro cell transformation ability of the three isoforms were examined using NIH3T3 cells overexpressing each respective isoform. All isoforms were found to be localized to the Golgi apparatus and plasma membrane, where the carboxy‐terminal region was exposed to the outside of cells. Cell transformation was tested using focus formation due to loss of contact inhibition of cell proliferation, and colony formation was examined on soft agar and spheroid formation in ultralow U‐bottomed wells. DynAPa robustly formed foci and colonies on soft agar and spheroid, whereas these abilities were considerably decreased for dynAPb and completely lost in dynAPc. These findings warrant dissection studies to identify the dynAP domain that is required for cell transformation.

Abstract High-tech industrial agglomeration is conducive to boosting technological progress, promoting industrial structure upgrading and realizing economic transformation, and certainly affects the overall industrial environmental efficiency. However, few recent studies have focused on its impact on industrial environmental efficiency from a green perspective. In the context of promoting the development of green economy, it is of great significance to clarify the links between high-tech industrial agglomeration and industrial environmental efficiency. In this research, we first analyzed the theoretical mechanism of the impact of high-tech industrial agglomeration and its spatial spillover effects on industrial environmental efficiency and then made an empirical analysis based on the panel data of 29 provinces and cities in China from 2003 to 2016. During the research, Super-DEA method, ESDA method and spatial Dubin model are used. The result shows that: (1) There is a significant spatial positive correlation between China's industrial environmental efficiency and high-tech industrial agglomeration; (2) high-tech industrial agglomeration has improved the local industrial productivity and industrial technology level through scale effects and technical effects, which has accordingly significantly enhanced the corresponding environmental efficiency; (3) through the association of regional industries, the cross-regional cooperation of enterprises and the formation of innovation networks, high-tech industrial agglomeration promotes the spillover of knowledge and technology among regions, improves the level of industrial technology in neighboring regions, and enhances the industrial environmental efficiency in neighboring regions. All these three is helpful to re-evaluate the development mode of high-tech industry agglomeration and to formulate relevant government policies.

Abstract Background Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a common type of lung cancer. Extracellular vehicles (EVs) are nano-sized particles containing proteins, lipids, and miRNAs secreted by various cells, which play important roles in the development of lung cancer by regulating a wide range of signaling pathways. This study focused on elucidating a potential mechanism by which EVs promote the development of NSCLC. Methods Expression levels of miR-744, SUV39H1, Smad9, and BMP4 in clinical tissue samples of NSCLC patients and cell lines were quantified by RT-qPCR and/or western blot analysis. The interaction between SUV39H1 and miR-744 was identified by dual-luciferase reporter assay. miR-744, SUV39H1, and BMP4 expression levels were modulated in A549 and H460 cells, in order to evaluate their effects on cell proliferation, colony formation and cell cycle. A NSCLC xenograft mouse model was used to verify the in vitro findings. NSCLC cell-derived EVs and normal bronchial epithelial cell-derived EVs were isolated and their roles in NSCLC development were evaluated in vivo and in vitro. Results miR-744 expression was lower in cancer cell-derived derived EVs than in normal lung epithelial cell-derived EVs. Reduced miR-744 expression in EVs upregulated SUV39H1 in NSCLC cells and further increased BMP4 levels to promote NSCLC development. BMP4 was upregulated in NSCLC cells upon suppression of Smad9 mediated by SUV39H1. Reduced miR-744 expression transferred from cancer cell-derived EVs into NSCLC cells enhanced cancer development. Conclusion Overall, our findings unveiled a mechanism whereby miR-744 delivered by NSCLC-derived EVs upregulated SUV39H1, activating the Smad9/BMP9 axis and thus promoted cancer development.

Tuning the mechanical properties of extracellular matrix is of great interest in tissue engineering but spatial control over stiffness in hydrogels has been demonstrated in two dimensions only. Here the authors developed a layer-by-layer printing technique which uses oxygen inhibition to control the heterogeneous stiffness in 3D printed structures.

Thanks to recent advances in nanophotonics and scalable manufacturing of metamaterials, radiative sky cooling has emerged as a “self-reliant” cooling technology with various potential applications. However, not every region across the globe is well suited for the adoption of radiative cooling technologies, depending on the local climate, population density, cooling demand, air conditioning saturation, economic prosperity, etc. Because the atmospheric downward longwave radiation, especially the portion from the atmospheric window (8–13 µm), is substantially affected by weather conditions, the performance of a well-designed radiative cooler can be vastly different across regions and seasons. Here, we first map the global radiative sky cooling potential in the form of net cooling power density. We then further evaluate it based on the global population density and cooling demand. In terms of the adjusted potential, we show that geographically and demographically “transitional” regions, located between wet and dry climates as well as sparsely and densely populated regions, are better suited for the adoption of radiative cooling technologies because of their temperate climate and moderate population density. Even in densely populated and humid regions, the cumulative impact and other accompanying benefits must not be ignored.

Fuzzy controllers with variable universe of discourse (VUD) have been applied in many fields of intelligent controlling because of their high-accuracy performance. This paper provides a lookup table method to design backing-up fuzzy controllers based on VUD. By setting a set of random start points, input-output data pairs are obtained using test-driving method. One data pair defines one fuzzy rule and also assigns the strength of every fuzzy rule. Conflicting fuzzy rule groups are integrated into one fuzzy rule by selecting the one with the maximum strength. A fuzzy rule table is built by the fuzzy rules deduced from input-output data pairs. Simulation experiments show that the VUD fuzzy controller outperforms the general fuzzy controller in accuracy at the final position of the parking lot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detecting coherent phonons pose different challenges compared to coherent photons due to the much stronger interaction between phonons and matter. This is especially true for high frequency heat carrying phonons, which are intrinsic lattice vibrations experiencing many decoherence events with the environment, and are thus generally assumed to be incoherent. Two photon interference techniques, especially coherent population trapping (CPT) and electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), have led to extremely sensitive detection, spectroscopy and metrology. Here, we propose the use of two photon interference in a three-level system to sense coherent phonons. Unlike prior works which have treated phonon coupling as damping, we account for coherent phonon coupling using a full quantum–mechanical treatment. We observe strong asymmetry in absorption spectrum in CPT and negative dispersion in EIT susceptibility in the presence of coherent phonon coupling which cannot be accounted for if only pure phonon damping is considered. Our proposal has application in sensing heat carrying coherent phonons effects and understanding coherent bosonic multi-pathway interference effects in three coupled oscillator systems.