ALBERT

Description: A novel non-sequencing approach was developed to detect short DNA fragments ( ca 100 bp) for rapid authentication of two natural products, namely Testudinis Carapax et Plastrum and Trionycis Carapax, based on the difference in mitochondrial genome. Five specifically designed primer reactions were established to target species for reliable identification of their commercial products. They were confirmed to have a high level of inter-species-specificity and good intra-species stability. The limit of detection was estimated to be 1 ng of genomes for all of five assays. Also, the validation results demonstrated that the raw materials and processed products in addition to some of the highly processed products can be conveniently authenticated with good sensitivity and precision by this newly proposed approach. Especially, when reference sample mixtures were assayed, these primer sets have still performed well but not the prevailing COI barcoding technology. These could assist in the discrimination and identification of other animal-derived medicines for their form of raw material, the pulverized and the complex.

Description: The wetting of hollow fibre membranes decreases the performance of the liquid–gas membrane contactor for CO 2 capture in biogas upgrading. To solve this problem, in this work, a poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) hollow fibre membrane for a liquid–gas membrane contactor was coated with a superhydrophobic layer composed of a combination of hydrophobic SiO 2 nanoparticles and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) by the method of spray deposition. A rough layer of SiO 2 deposited on the PVDF membrane resulted in an enhanced surface hydrophobicity. The surface structure of the pristine PVDF significantly affected the homogeneity of the generated SiO 2 layer. A uniform surface coating on the PVDF upper layer resulted from the presence of micrometre and nanometre-sized roughness on the surface of the PVDF membrane, which was achieved with a SiO 2 concentration of 4.44 mg ml –1 (0.2 g/45 ml) in the coating solution. As a result, the water contact angle of the modified surface was recorded as 155 ± 3°, which is higher than that of the pristine surface. The high contact angle is advantageous for reducing the wetting of the membrane. Additional mass transfer resistance was introduced by the superhydrophobic layer. In addition, continuous CO 2 absorption tests were carried out in original and modified PVDF hollow fibre membrane contactors, using monoethanolamine (MEA) solution as the absorbent. A long-term stability test revealed that the modified PVDF hollow fibre membrane contactor was able to outperform the original membrane contactor and demonstrated outstanding long-term stability, suggesting that spray deposition is a promising approach to obtain superhydrophobic PVDF membranes for liquid–gas membrane absorption.

Description: Transparent tubes with functions of heating and temperature measurement are badly required in the visualization investigation of two-phase flows and flow-boiling heat transfer. In order to prepare such a tube, we introduced a cost-effective and energy-efficient procedure of hypergravity-assisted chemical liquid deposition (HACLD) to produce transparent and conductive silver (Ag) films on the inner surfaces of quartz tubes, typically 50 mm in length and 8 mm in inner diameter with a set-up that was designed and built for this purpose. Precursors of organometallic Ag precursor solutions were prepared by dissolving silver citrate and 1,2-diaminopropane in 2-methoxyethanol with required concentration for the chemical liquid deposition process. Semitransparent and conductive Ag films formed inside the required quartz tubes under specific heating process in hypergravity. One of the films was about 47 nm in thickness, 23 per square sheet resistance, and 30% optical transmittance. This attempt may pave a way for the understanding of the film forming mechanism in hypergravity, and the development of a film preparation technology of HACLD.

Description: Singular spectrum analysis (SSA) is a powerful technique for time series analysis. Based on the property that the original time series can be reproduced from its principal components, this contribution will develop an improved SSA (ISSA) for processing the incomplete time series and the modified SSA (SSAM) of Schoellhamer (2001) is its special case. The approach was evaluated with the synthetic and real incomplete time series data of suspended-sediment concentration from San Francisco Bay. The result from the synthetic time series with missing data shows that the relative errors of the principal components reconstructed by ISSA are much smaller than those reconstructed by SSAM. Moreover, when the percentage of the missing data over the whole time series reaches 60%, the improvements of relative errors are up to 19.64, 41.34, 23.27 and 50.30% for the first four principal components, respectively. Besides, both the mean absolute errors and mean root mean squared errors of the reconstructed time series by ISSA are also much smaller than those by SSAM. The respective improvements are 34.45 and 33.91% when the missing data accounts for 60%. The results from real incomplete time series also show that the SD derived by ISSA is 12.27 mg L−1, smaller than 13.48 mg L−1 derived by SSAM.

Description: Singular spectrum analysis (SSA) is a powerful technique for time series analysis. Based on the property that the original time series can be reproduced from its principal components, this contribution develops an improved SSA (ISSA) for processing the incomplete time series and the modified SSA (SSAM) of Schoellhamer (2001) is its special case. The approach is evaluated with the synthetic and real incomplete time series data of suspended-sediment concentration from San Francisco Bay. The result from the synthetic time series with missing data shows that the relative errors of the principal components reconstructed by ISSA are much smaller than those reconstructed by SSAM. Moreover, when the percentage of the missing data over the whole time series reaches 60 %, the improvements of relative errors are up to 19.64, 41.34, 23.27 and 50.30 % for the first four principal components, respectively. Both the mean absolute error and mean root mean squared error of the reconstructed time series by ISSA are also smaller than those by SSAM. The respective improvements are 34.45 and 33.91 % when the missing data accounts for 60 %. The results from real incomplete time series also show that the standard deviation (SD) derived by ISSA is 12.27 mg L−1, smaller than the 13.48 mg L−1 derived by SSAM.

Description: Terrestrial vegetation dynamics are closely influenced by both climate and by both climate and by land use and/or land cover change (LULCC) caused by human activities. Both can change over time in a monotonic way and it can be difficult to separate the effects of climate change from LULCC on vegetation. Here we attempt to attribute trends in the fractional green vegetation cover to climate variability and to human activity in Ejina Region, a hyper-arid landlocked region in northwest China. This region is dominated by extensive deserts with relatively small areas of irrigation located along the major water courses as is typical throughout much of Central Asia. Variations of fractional vegetation cover from 2000 to 2012 were determined using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) vegetation index data with 250 m spatial resolution over 16-day intervals. We found that the fractional vegetation cover in this hyper-arid region is very low but that the mean growing season vegetation cover has increased from 3.4% in 2000 to 4.5% in 2012. The largest contribution to the overall greening was due to changes in green vegetation cover of the extensive desert areas with a smaller contribution due to changes in the area of irrigated land. Comprehensive analysis with different precipitation data sources found that the greening of the desert was associated with increases in regional precipitation. We further report that the area of land irrigated each year can be predicted using the runoff gauged 1 year earlier. Taken together, water availability both from precipitation in the desert and runoff inflow for the irrigation agricultural lands can explain at least 52% of the total variance in regional vegetation cover from 2000 to 2010. The results demonstrate that it is possible to separate the satellite-observed changes in green vegetation cover into components due to climate and human modifications. Such results inform management on the implications for water allocation between oases in the middle and lower reaches and for water management in the Ejina oasis.

Description: Terrestrial vegetation dynamics are closely influenced by both climate change and by direct human activities that modify land use and/or land cover (LULCC). Both can change over time in a monotonic way and it can be difficult to separate the effects of climate change from LULCC on vegetation. Here we attempt to attribute the trend of fractional green vegetation cover to climate change and to human activity in Ejina region, a hyper-arid landlocked region in northwest China. This region is dominated by extensive deserts with relatively small areas of irrigation located along the major water courses as is typical throughout much of Central Asia. Variations of fractional vegetation cover from 2000 to 2012 were determined using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) vegetation index data with 250 m spatial resolution over 16 day intervals. We found that the fractional vegetation cover in this hyper-arid region is very low, but that the mean growing season vegetation cover has increased from 3.4% in 2000 to 4.5% in 2012. The largest contribution to the overall greening was due to changes in green vegetation cover of the extensive desert areas with a smaller contribution due to changes in the area of irrigated land. Comprehensive analysis with different precipitation data sources found that the greening of the desert was associated with increases in regional precipitation. We found that the area of land irrigated each year was mostly dependent on the runoff gauged one year earlier. Taken together, water availability both from precipitation in the desert and runoff inflow for the irrigation agricultural lands can explain at least 52% of the total variance in regional vegetation cover from 2000 to 2010.

Description: The North China Plain is one of the most important crop production regions in China. However, water resources in the area are limited. Accurate modeling of water consumption and crop production in response to the changing environment is important. To better describe the two-way interactions among climate, irrigation, and crop growth, the crop phenology and physiology scheme of the SiBcrop model was coupled with the Simple Biosphere model version 2 (SiB2) for simulating crop phenology, as well as the crop production and evapotranspiration of winter wheat and summer maize, two of the main crops in the region. In the coupled model, the Leaf Area Index (LAI) produced by the crop phenology and physiology scheme was used in estimating the sub-hourly energy and carbon fluxes. Observations obtained from two typical eddy covariance sites located in this region were used to validate the model. The coupled model was able to simulate carbon and energy fluxes, soil water content, biomass carbon, and crop yield with high accuracy, especially for the latent heat flux and carbon flux. The LAI was also well-simulated by the model. Therefore, the coupled model is capable of assessing the responses of water resources and crop production to the changes of future climate and irrigation schedules.

Description: Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and total dissolved amino acids (TDAA) were measured in high (Chukchi Sea) and low (Beaufort Sea) productivity regions of the Western Arctic Ocean to investigate the composition and bioavailability of dissolved organic matter (DOM). Concentrations and DOC-normalized yields of TDAA in Chukchi surface waters were relatively high, indicating an accumulation of bioavailable DOM. High yields of TDAA were also observed in the upper halocline of slope and basin waters, indicating off-shelf transport of bioavailable DOM from the Chukchi Sea. In contrast, concentrations and yields of TDAA in Beaufort surface waters were relatively low, indicting DOM was of limited bioavailability. Yields of TDAA in the upper halocline of slope and basin waters were also low, suggesting the Beaufort is not a major source of bioavailable DOM to slope and basin waters. In shelf waters of both systems, elevated concentrations and yields of TDAA were often observed in waters with higher chlorophyll concentrations and productivity. Surface concentrations of DOC were similar (p 〉 0.05) in the two systems despite the contrasting productivity, but concentrations and yields of TDAA were significantly higher (p 〈 0.0001) in the Chukchi than in the Beaufort. Unlike bulk DOC, TDAA concentrations and yields reflect ecosystem productivity in the Western Arctic. The occurrence of elevated bioavailable DOM concentrations in the Chukchi implies an uncoupling between the biological production and utilization of DOM and has important implications for sustaining heterotrophic microbial growth and diversity in oligotrophic waters of the Central Arctic basins.

Description: Aerosol optical properties were measured with a seven-wavelength aethalometer and a three-wavelength nephelometer at the suburban site SORPES in Nanjing, China, in September 2013–January 2015. The aethalometer compensation parameter k, calculated with the Virkkula et al. (2007) method depended on the backscatter fraction, measured with an independent method, the integrating nephelometer. At λ = 660 nm the daily averaged compensation parameter k ≈ 0.0017 ± 0.0002 and 0.0042 ± 0.0013 when backscatter fraction at λ = 635 nm was in the ranges of 0.100 ± 0.005 and 0.160 ± 0.005, respectively. Also, the wavelength dependency of the compensation parameter depended on the backscatter fraction: when b(λ = 525 nm) was less than approximately 0.13 the compensation parameter decreased with wavelength and at larger b it increased with wavelength. This dependency has not been considered in any of the algorithms that are currently used for processing aethalometer data. The compensation parameter also depended on the single-scattering albedo ω0 so that k decreased with increasing ω0. For the green light (λ = 520 nm) in the ω0 range 0.870 ± 0.005, the average (± standard deviation) k ≈ 0.0047 ± 0.006 and in the ω0 range 0.960 ± 0.005, k ≈ 0.0028 ± 0.0007. This difference was larger for the near-infrared light (λ = 880 nm): in the ω0 range 0.860 ± 0.005, k ≈ 0.0055 ± 0.0023 and in the ω0 range 0.960 ± 0.005, k ≈ 0.0019 ± 0.0011. The negative dependence of k on ω0 was also shown with a simple theoretical analysis.