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The 8.2 ka event has been extensively investigated as a remarkable single event but rarely considered as a part of multi-centennial climatic evolution. Here, we present absolutely dated speleothem multi-proxy records spanning 9.0–7.9 ka from Beijing in North China, near the northern limit of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) and thus sensitive to climate change, to provide evidence of the intensified multi-decadal climatic oscillations since 8.52 ka. Three extreme excursions characterized by inter-decadal consecutive δ18O excursions exceeding ±1σ are identified from 8.52 ka in our speleothem record. The earlier two are characterized by enriched 18O at ∼8.50 and 8.20 ka, respectively, suggesting a prolonged arid event, which is supported by the positive trend in δ13C values, increased trace element ratios, and lower growth rate. Following the 8.2 ka event, an excessive rebound immediately emerges in our δ18O and trace element records but moderate in the δ13C, probably suggesting pluvial conditions and nonlinear response of the local ecosystem. Following two similar severe droughts at 8.50 and 8.20 ka, the different behavior of δ13C suggests the recovering degree of resilient ecosystem responding to different rebounded rainfall intensity. A comparison with other high-resolution records suggests that the two droughts–one pluvial pattern between 8.52 and 8.0 ka is of global significance instead of being a regional phenomenon, and is causally linked to the slowdown and acceleration of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation that was further dominated by the freshwater injections in the North Atlantic.

The “4.2 ka event” is frequently described as a major global climate anomaly between 4.2 and 3.9 ka, which defines the beginning of the current Meghalayan age in the Holocene epoch. The “event” has been disproportionately reported from proxy records from the Northern Hemisphere, but its climatic manifestation remains much less clear in the Southern Hemisphere. Here, we present highly resolved and chronologically well-constrained speleothem oxygen and carbon isotopes records between ∼6 and 3 ka from Rodrigues Island in the southwestern subtropical Indian Ocean, located ∼600 km east of Mauritius. Our records show that the 4.2 ka event did not manifest itself as a period of major climate change at Rodrigues Island in the context of our record's length. Instead, we find evidence for a multi-centennial drought that occurred near-continuously between 3.9 and 3.5 ka and temporally coincided with climate change throughout the Southern Hemisphere.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) embarked on an ambitious 5 yr survey in 2021 May to explore the nature of dark energy with spectroscopic measurements of 40 million galaxies and quasars. DESI will determine precise redshifts and employ the baryon acoustic oscillation method to measure distances from the nearby universe to beyond redshift z > 3.5, and employ redshift space distortions to measure the growth of structure and probe potential modifications to general relativity. We describe the significant instrumentation we developed to conduct the DESI survey. This includes: a wide-field, 3.°2 diameter prime-focus corrector; a focal plane system with 5020 fiber positioners on the 0.812 m diameter, aspheric focal surface; 10 continuous, high-efficiency fiber cable bundles that connect the focal plane to the spectrographs; and 10 identical spectrographs. Each spectrograph employs a pair of dichroics to split the light into three channels that together record the light from 360–980 nm with a spectral resolution that ranges from 2000–5000. We describe the science requirements, their connection to the technical requirements, the management of the project, and interfaces between subsystems. DESI was installed at the 4 m Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory and has achieved all of its performance goals. Some performance highlights include an rms positioner accuracy of better than 0.″1 and a median signal-to-noise ratio of 7 of the [O ii ] doublet at 8 × 10 ^−17 erg s ^−1 cm ^−2 in 1000 s for galaxies at z = 1.4–1.6. We conclude with additional highlights from the on-sky validation and commissioning, key successes, and lessons learned.

A large array of proxy records suggests that the “4.2 ka event” marks an approximately 300-year long period (∼3.9 to 4.2 ka) of major climate change across the globe. However, the climatic manifestation of this event, including its onset, duration, and termination, remains less clear in the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) domain. Here, we present new oxygen isotope (δ18O) data from a pair of speleothems (ML.1 and ML.2) from Mawmluh Cave, Meghalaya, India, that provide a high-resolution record of ISM variability during a period (∼3.78 and 4.44 ka) that fully encompasses the 4.2 ka event. The sub-annually to annually resolved ML.1 δ18O record is constrained by 18 230Th dates with an average dating error of ±13 years (2σ) and a resolution of ∼40 years, which allows us to characterize the ISM variability with unprecedented detail. The inferred pattern of ISM variability during the period contemporaneous with the 4.2 ka event shares broad similarities and key differences with the previous reconstructions of ISM from the Mawmluh Cave and other proxy records from the region. Our data suggest that the ISM intensity, in the context of the length of our record, abruptly decreased at ∼4.0 ka (∼±13 years), marking the onset of a multi-centennial period of relatively reduced ISM, which was punctuated by at least two multi-decadal droughts between ∼3.9 and 4.0 ka. The latter stands out in contrast with some previous proxy reconstructions of the ISM, in which the 4.2 ka event has been depicted as a singular multi-centennial drought.

This paper takes Guangxi coastal zone as the study area, following the standards of land use type, divides the coastal zone of ecological landscape into seven kinds of natural wetland landscape types such as woodland, farmland, grassland, water, urban land and wetlands. Using TM data of 2000–2015 such 15 years, with the CART decision tree algorithm, for analysis the characteristic of types of landscape’s remote sensing image and build decision tree rules of landscape classification to extract information classification. Analyzing of the evolution process of the landscape pattern in Guangxi coastal zone in nearly 15 years, we may understand the distribution characteristics and change rules. Combined with the natural disaster data, we use of landscape index and the related risk interference degree and construct ecological risk evaluation model in Guangxi coastal zone for ecological risk assessment results of Guangxi coastal zone.

Faults, folds and other tectonics regions belong to the weak areas of geology, will form linear geomorphology as a result of erosion, which appears as lineaments on the earth surface. Lineaments control the distribution of regional formation, groundwater, and geothermal, etc., so it is an important indicator for the evaluation of the strength and stability of the geological structure. The current algorithms mostly are artificial visual interpretation and computer semi-automatic extraction, not only time-consuming, but labour-intensive. It is difficult to guarantee the accuracy due to the dependence on the expert’s knowledge, experience, and the computer hardware and software. Therefore, an integrated algorithm is proposed based on the GF-1 satellite image data, taking the loess area in the northern part of Jinlinghe basin as an example. Firstly, the best bands with 4-3-2 composition is chosen using optimum index factor (OIF). Secondly, line edge is highlighted by Gaussian high-pass filter and tensor voting. Finally, the Hough Transform is used to detect the geologic lineaments. Thematic maps of geological structure in this area are mapped through the extraction of lineaments. The experimental results show that, influenced by the northern margin of Qinling Mountains and the declined Weihe Basin, the lineaments are mostly distributed over the terrain lines, and mainly in the NW, NE, NNE, and ENE directions. It provided a reliable basis for analysing tectonic stress trend because of the agreement with the existing regional geological survey. The algorithm is more practical and has higher robustness, less disturbed by human factors.

Sugarcane is one of the most important crops in Guangxi, China. As the development of satellite remote sensing technology, more remotely sensed images can be used for monitoring sugarcane crop. With the help of Three Line Camera (TLC) images, wide coverage and stereoscopic mapping ability, Chinese ZY-3 high resolution stereoscopic mapping satellite is useful in attaining more information for sugarcane crop monitoring, such as spectral, shape, texture difference between forward, nadir and backward images. Digital surface model (DSM) derived from ZY-3 TLC images are also able to provide height information for sugarcane crop. In this study, we make attempt to extract sugarcane crop from ZY-3 images, which are acquired in harvest period. Ortho-rectified TLC images, fused image, DSM are processed for our extraction. Then Object-oriented method is used in image segmentation, example collection, and feature extraction. The results of our study show that with the help of ZY-3 TLC image, the information of sugarcane crop in harvest time can be automatic extracted, with an overall accuracy of about 85.3 %.

Ionospheric disturbances constitute the main restriction factor for precise positioning techniques based on global positioning system (GPS) measurements. Simultaneously, GPS observations are widely used to determine ionospheric disturbances with total electron content (TEC). In this paper, we present an analysis of ionospheric disturbances over China mid- and low-latitude area before and during the magnetic storm on 17 March 2015. The work analyses the variation of magnetic indices, the amplitude of ionospheric irregularities observed with four arrays of GPS stations and the influence of geomagnetic storm on GPS positioning. The results show that significant ionospheric TEC disturbances occurred between 10:30 and 12:00 UT during the main phase of the large storm, and the static position reliability for this period are little affected by these disturbances. It is observed that the positive and negative disturbances propagate southward along the meridian from mid-latitude to low-latitude regions. The propagation velocity is from about 200 to 700 m s−1 and the amplitude of ionospheric disturbances is from about 0.2 to 0.9 TECU min−1. Moreover, the position dilution of precession (PDOP) with static precise point positioning (PPP) on storm and quiet days is 1.8 and 0.9 cm, respectively. This study is based on the analysis of ionospheric variability with differential rate of vertical TEC (DROVT) and impact of ionospheric storm on positioning with technique of GPS PPP.

Natural rubber (NR) as renewable resource is a kind of cheap and versatile elastomer. A disadvantage of NR is that the ozone resistance is not good, which needs to be improved for its wider application. In this study, polymethylvinylsiloxane (PMVS) coating on natural rubber (NR) was realized for the first time by using thiol-ene click reaction under UV irradiation, simultaniously realizing the fast crosslinking of PMVS layer and the covalent crosslinking between PMVS layer and NR layer. As a result, a good interphase adhesion between PMVS coating and NR was obtained. The coating of the crosslinked PMVS layer on NR resulted in an obvious increase in the ozone resistance of NR. Our study provides a new and high efficient strategy to prepare elastomer materials with good ozone resistance.

Na2CO3/NaHCO3 mixtures with different oxidants were used to leach uranium in the lignite which was obtained from Lincang, Yunnan province. The experimental results showed that the optimal solid/liquid ratio and CO32-/HCO3- ratio for uranium leaching were 1 : 20 (g/mL) and 2 : 1, respectively. With the increase of carbon concentration from 0.1 mol/L to 1.1 mol/L, the leaching efficiency of uranium increased from 14.64% to 42.39% after 6 h leaching. The oxidants could significantly enhance the uranium leaching efficiency, which was up to 72.23% by injecting O2 at 1.5 L/min after 12 h leaching. The oxidative leaching process of uranium from the lignite was better fitted to the pseudo-second-order reaction model. The sequential extraction results illustrated that the oxidants could effectively enhance the leaching of organic matter bound uranium in the lignite, which was decreased from 76.86 mg/kg to 9.00 mg/kg by injecting O2. The infrared spectrum analysis demonstrated that the corresponding transmittance at about 3197 cm−1 was prominently reduced after the oxidative leaching, which intimated that the phenolic and alcoholic hydroxyl might be the main functional groups combined with uranium in the lignite.

Rotator cuff tears represent a large burden of muscle-tendon injuries in our aging population. While small tears can be repaired surgically with good outcomes, critical size tears are marked by muscle atrophy, fibrosis, and fatty infiltration, which can lead to failed repair, frequent re-injury, and chronic disability. Previous animal studies have indicated that Transforming Growth Factor-β (TGF-β) signaling may play an important role in the development of these muscle pathologies after injury. Here, we demonstrated that inhibition of TGF-β1 signaling with the small molecule inhibitor SB431542 in a mouse model of massive rotator cuff tear results in decreased fibrosis, fatty infiltration, and muscle weight loss. These observed phenotypic changes were accompanied by decreased fibrotic, adipogenic, and atrophy-related gene expression in the injured muscle of mice treated with SB431542. We further demonstrated that treatment with SB431542 reduces the number of fibro/adipogenic progenitor (FAP) cells-an important cellular origin of rotator cuff muscle fibrosis and fatty infiltration, in injured muscle by promoting apoptosis of FAPs. Together, these data indicate that the TGF-β pathway is a critical regulator of the degenerative muscle changes seen after massive rotator cuff tears. TGF-β promotes rotator cuff muscle fibrosis and fatty infiltration by preventing FAP apoptosis. TGF-β regulated FAP apoptosis may serve as an important target pathway in the future development of novel therapeutics to improve muscle outcomes following rotator cuff tear.