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The accumulation of protein-bound uremic toxins (PBUTs) in the blood may result in the development of uremia into advanced stages. However, traditional hemoperfusion absorbents for PBUT removal have the main drawbacks of non-specific adhesion of plasma proteins, lower PBUT adsorption efficiency and poor hemocompatibility. Here, we report a micro–nanostructural design to synthesize a novel hemocompatible hemoperfusion absorbent by combining nanoporous hollow microspheres and PBUT-absorbing nanoparticles. Natural pollen nanoporous hollow microspheres were used as a skeleton to accelerate PBUT adsorption, and the PBUT-absorbing NU-1000 nanoparticles were in situ grown and decorated on the pollen skeleton (PPNU) via the intermediation of a polydopamine layer. Moreover, heparin was modified on the PPNU (PPNUH) to offer excellent hemocompatibility without sacrificing the PBUT-adsorbing sites of NU-1000. PPNUH specifically adsorbed PBUTs and possessed a high maximum adsorption capacity for various PBUTs (282 mg g−1 for p-cresyl sulfate, 329 mg g−1 for indoxyl sulfate, and 188 mg g−1 for quinoline acid). Furthermore, the integration of nanoporous hollow microspheres and PBUT-absorbing nanoparticles permitted quick adsorption of 85% of the free PBUT within 10 s while removing 70% of albumin-bound PBUTs within the first 1 min in simulated hemoperfusion. The exquisite micro–nanostructure of PPNUH and heparin modification synergistically achieved the efficient, rapid, and safe removal of PUBTs, and the design strategy provided a guiding idea for the development of future multifunctional and portable hemoperfusion materials.

More and more attention has been paid to farmland water conservancy project (FWCP) maintenance in China, which can reallocate water resources in a more rational and efficient manner. Compared with the traditional survey such as field survey, FWCP maintenance can be improved efficiently with geospatial technology. To improve the level of FWCP maintenance in China, a collaborative sensing system framework by integrating satellite, aerial, and ground remote sensing is put forward. The structure of the system framework includes three sections, namely the data acquisition, the operational work, and the application and service. Through the construction and operation of such collaborative sensing system, it will break through the limitation of any single remote sensing platform and provide all-around and real-time information on FWCP. The collaborative monitoring schemes for the designed FWCP maintenance can engage ditch riders to maintain more effectively, which will enable them to communicate more specifically with smallholders in the process of irrigation. Only when ditch riders and farmers are fully involved, irrigation efficiency will be improved. Furthermore, the collaborative sensing system needs feasible standards for multi-source remote sensing data processing and intelligent information extraction such as data fusion, data assimilation, and data mining. In a way, this will promote the application of remote sensing in the field of agricultural irrigation and water saving. On the whole, it will be helpful to improve the traditional maintenance problems and is also the guarantee for establishing a long-term scientific management mechanism of FWCP maintenance in developing countries, especially in China.

The rapid development of remote sensing (RS) technology enables an increased usage of high - resolution, spatial, temporal or spectral, data to extract vegetation information, improve model parameters, and estimate energy crop biomass accurately. Five estimation methods developing with RS information for energy crop biomass are summarized in this paper. Firstly, the statistical analysis with vegetation index can be regarded as the commonest method. But it is faulted for the deficiency of sample data and the vulnerability to the influence of many factors such as cloudy days. Secondly, the longer wavelength makes SAR information popular for crop biomass estimation. But many limitations lead to measurement uncertainty and bring about poor classification. Thirdly, NPP can directly reflect accumulated biomass production through photosynthesis and measure the consequences caused by climate change and human activities. But, actual LUE, the results of environmental stresses such as light intensity, temperature, water, and nutrients, is usually considered as a constant. Fourthly, crop height information is vitally important for biomass estimation. Yet the corresponding application is often subject to many factors e.g. crop variety, growth period, and farmland management practices limits. Lastly, the most promising approach lies in the possibility of assimilating state variables from RS data into CGMs. And the advent of latest instruments with better characteristics offer a unique chance to overcome current limitations. In the end, the main challenges and opportunities for energy crop biomass estimation using RS information in the future are listed.

Traffic light recognition in urban environments is crucial for vehicle control. Many studies have been devoted to recognizing traffic lights. However, existing recognition methods still face many challenges in terms of accuracy, runtime and size. This paper presents a novel robust traffic light recognition approach that takes into account these three aspects based on image processing and deep learning. The proposed approach adopts a two-stage architecture, first performing detection and then classification. In the detection, the perspective relationship and the fractal dimension are both considered to dramatically reduce the number of invalid candidate boxes, i.e. region proposals. In the classification, the candidate boxes are classified by SqueezeNet. Finally, the recognized traffic light boxes are reshaped by postprocessing. Compared with several reference models, this approach is significantly competitive in terms of accuracy and runtime. We show that our approach is lightweight, easy to implement, and applicable to smart terminals, mobile devices or embedded devices in practice.

With rapid social and economic development, pressure on the land ecosystem in Shandong Province, China, is becoming more and more obvious. This study aimed to gain insight into the impacts of urbanization on several ecosystem and land characteristics. Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach was used to estimate the terrestrial vegetation net primary productivity (NPP) from 2001 to 2010 in Shandong. The spatio-temporal pattern of NPP was analyzed. Subsequently, the pressure index of cultivated land in Shandong was calculated and used to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics and the problem of supply and demand for cultivated land by using geographical information system technology. The relationship between NPP and the pressure index of cultivated land was further analyzed, and the influence of both natural and manmade factors was discussed. Based on the above, some suggestions have been proposed for the sustainable development of land use/cover change in Shandong Province. A weak increasing trend in the overall NPP has been observed over the study period, and the NPP in the southwest was higher than in other regions. Impacts of the land use types on NPP were different. About 34.6 × 1012 g of carbon was absorbed every year, of which nearly 75% was absorbed by farmland. Cultivated land initially decreased and then increased during the period. With the help of technology, science, macroeconomic policy, and other developments, the total grain yield increased with some fluctuation. Moreover, the actual area of cultivated land has increased. These changes improved the theoretical minimum cultivated land area per capita, while the pressure index decreased. The pressure on cultivated land also showed obvious regional differences during this period, which is mainly concentrated in the coastal regions and the cities of Jinan and Laiwu. In the western and northern regions, on the other hand, the pressure was relatively lower due to slower economic growth. These results reflect that the urbanization has huge impact on the cultivated land resources.

Natural pollen, one of the most fascinating biological materials in existence, exhibits chemical modifications and tunable optical property in the process of fossilization. Herein, we firstly fabricated nature-based fossil-like pollen grains (F-PGs) with UV-responsive optical properties through a facile concentrated H2SO4 treatment. The F-PGs featured incomplete carbonization property while remaining the UV-active alkyl aliphatic groups, which could initiate the carbonylation of F-PGs surface under UV irradiation, thus endowing the distinct UV dose-dependent photochromic and fluorogenic dual-function of F-PGs. With the sustainable, easy-preparation and cost-effective advantages, the F-PGs were used to construct dual-functional films. The F-PG films presented high photochromic contrast (ΔE* = 32) to serve as smartphone-readable quick response code-patterned UV sensors, which indicated the highest reported cumulative dose of UV irradiation (108 J cm−2, equivalent to 10 days of exposure to sunlight). In addition, the UV-irradiated F-PG films with the fluorogenic property also showed wide applications in one-step and flexible photo-reduction of various metal ions to nanoparticles. Collectively, the novel fossil-like pollen grains and functional films pave the way for utilization of natural pollen for UV-responsive applications and provide a new insight for transporting the renewable biomass into photochromic and fluorogenic materials in the future.

Carbon dynamics, a key index to evaluate ecosystems, are very complex in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region due to the topography, diverse regional climate, and different land cover types. MODIS GPP was used to evaluate carbon sequestration in the HKH region from 2001 to 2016. In general, the spatio-temporal variation of the average daily gross primary productivity (GPP) was very heterogeneous due to the changing terrain, diverse regional climate, and different land cover types in the region. Many factors should be considered for GPP measurements, including satellite, airplane, ground-based and modelling data. We concluded that it is necessary to determine the driving forces of GPP in the future in order to establish scientific policies and development programs for the HKH region.

Huangyuan county is located in the eastern part of Qinghai province and is the transition zone of Loess Plateau and Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. While the ecological environment in Huangyuan county is fragile and is mainly characterized as serous soil erosion, frequent natural disasters. It is very important to study the soil erosion. Hudan river basin was selected to study the soil erosion in Huangyuan county. The soil erosion information was extracted from Landsat 5 TM data in 1987, 2000 and 2010. To classify and grade soil erosion was according to the classification standard, Classification Standard for Soil Erosion, issued by the Ministry of Water Resources of the People’s Republic of China. The types of soil erosion in the basin were classified as water erosion, freeze-thaw erosion and engineering erosion based on TM imagery, field survey and historical data. Water erosion was the most important part and accounted for more than 90% of the whole area. Weak water erosion increased significantly during the period, mainly distributing in the north of the basin. Slight-degree water erosion increased from 1987 to 2000, while there was a steep reduce during the period from 2000 to 2010. Freeze-thaw erosion distributed mainly in northern areas with high altitude. What Engineering erosion affected were narrow valley areas suitable for human settlements and agricultural production.

To study the effect of glycolysis inhibitor 3-bromopyruvate (3-BrPA) in inducing apoptosis of human breast carcinoma cells SK-BR-3 and the possible mechanism.MTT assay was used to detect the growth inhibition induced by 3-BrPA in breast cancer cells SK-BR-3. The apoptotic cells were detected by flow cytometry with propidium iodide (PI). ATP levels in the cells were detected by ATP assay kit, and DHE fluorescent probe technique was used to determine superoxide anion levels; the mitochondrial membrane potential was assessed using JC-1 staining assay.MTT assay showed that the proliferation of SK-BR-3 cells was inhibited by 3-BrPA in a time- and concentration-dependent manner. Exposure to 80, 160, and 320 µmol·L(-1) 3-BrPA for 24 h resulted in cell apoptosis rates of 6.7%, 22.3%, and 79.6%, respectively, and the intracellular ATP levels of SK-BR-3 cells treated with 80, 160, 320 µmol·L(-1) 3-BrPA for 5 h were 87.7%, 60.6%, and 23.7% of the control levels. 3-BrPA at 160 µmol·L(-1) increased reactive oxygen levels and lowered mitochondrial membrane potential of SK-BR-3 cells.3-BrPA can inhibit cell proliferation, reduce the mitochondrial membrane potential and induce apoptosis in SK-BR-3 cells, the mechanism of which may involve a reduced ATP level by inhibiting glycolysis and increasing the reactive oxygen level in the cells.

In order to evaluate the arable land change and ites pressure in coastal region of Jiangsu province, China. Land use change from 2006 to 2010 were analyzed based on TM imagery. With the help of the Statistical Yearbook, the pressure index of arable land in the region was calculated and the four partition were divided. The urbanization trend and the driving factors were also analyzed. That some countermeasures should be taken was suggested.

Three-dimension spatial data is the most restriction of 3DGIS development. Although CityGML is a kind of open 3DGIS data model, the key factor of 3DGIS application successfully is how to construct 3D spatial data quickly. This paper proposes a method to construct 3D spatial data effectively based on ontology. Lod0-Lod4 Geometrical models are constructed on the SketchUp platform easily. Topological model, appearance model and semantic model are constructed through computer-aid system which is developed with an open source project CityGML4J library and Obj which is used to read-in three-dimensional coordinate. Then, the models are exported as CityGML files and all these files are imported into a relation database. By the supporting of web service technology, 3D spatial data is published on network. The results show that the approach acquires 3D spatial data fast and it will apply in a variety of fields in 3DGIS.

The Digital Elevation Model (DEM) are terrain elevations at regularly spaced horizontal intervals, i.e., an a grid of regularly spaced elevations. With the development of computing technology, the methods of data acquisition, data storage and data processing speed for DEMs get along well. Heihe river lies in the northwest of China and is a continental river. It roots from snow-ice and disappears in deserts. The drainage area is about 140,000 square kilometers and the river is the main water source for the living. The upper reaches are mountainous and the runoff is very important. The middle reaches are oasis. At present, many hydrological and ecological models are introduced. The catchment basin and stream network data acquired from DEMs are main input data for many surface hydrological models. So the quality and resolution of DEMs are significant. Software ENVI Version 4.2 furnishes with the DEMs Extraction Module. The paper compared several methods for extracting DEMs of the upper reaches. We extracted the elevation data from the ASTER---stereo images with the module and created the DEM. Secondly; we collected the DEM based on the contour map of Heihe river. The comparison of the DEMs quality was carried out between the DEM from the contour map, the DEM extracted by ENVI Version 4.2. To a certain extent, the DEM from Aster imagery can reflect the terrain and be used in hydrological models.

Hexokinase II (HKII), a key enzyme of glycolysis, is widely over-expressed in cancer cells. 3-bromopyruvate (3-BrPA), an inhibitor of HK II, has been proposed as a specific antitumor agent. Autophagy is a process that regulates the balance between protein synthesis and protein degradation. Autophagy in mammalian systems occurs under basal conditions and can be stimulated by stresses, including starvation, oxidative stress. Therefore, we hypothesized that 3-BrPA could induce autophagy. In the present study, we explored the mechanism of 3-BrPA and its combined action with chloroquine. Our results demonstrate that in MDA-MB-435 and in MDA-MB-231 cells, 3-BrPA induces autophagy, which can be inhibited by chloroquine. Furthermore, the combined treatment synergistically decreased the number of viable cells. Interestingly, the combined treatment triggered apoptosis in MDA-MB-435 cells, while it induced necroptosis in MDA-MB-231 cells. ROS mediated cell death when 3-BrPA and CQ were co-administered. Finally, CQ enhanced the anticancer efficacy of 3-BrPA in vivo. Collectively, our results show that 3-BrPA triggers autophagy, increasing breast cancer cell resistance to 3-BrPA treatment and that CQ enhanced 3-BrPA-induced cell death in breast cancer cells by stimulating ROS formation. Thus, inhibition of autophagy may be an innovative strategy for adjuvant chemotherapy of breast cancer.human skeletal muscle. Efficient Mirk depletion in SU86.86 pancreatic cancer cells by an inducible shRNA decreased expression of eight antioxidant genes. Thus both cancer cells and differentiated myotubes utilize Mirk kinase to relieve oxidative stress.