We test the anisotropy in the Finslerian cosmological model with the X-ray and ultraviolet (UV) fluxes of quasars. The 2015 and 2020 compilations of quasars are used in the cosmological constraints. ...We find that the dipole direction given by the 2015 quasar compilation is not far away from the one provided by the Pantheon sample and the angular differences are around
30
∘
. The Pantheon sample is combined with quasars as the “standardized candles” to test the cosmic anisotropy. The results from two combined datasets are consistent. They show that the dipole anisotropy is weak in the Finslerian cosmological model. We investigate the Hubble constant
H
0
in the Finslerian cosmological model. Though the central value of
H
0
from the combination of six gravitationally lensed quasars, Pantheon sample, and 2020 quasar compilation decreases a little bit, it is consistent with the result from six gravitationally lensed quasars within statistical uncertainties.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Breast cancer is one of the leading causes for cancer related deaths in women, and early detection is extremely important to improve survival rates. Currently, x-ray mammogram is the only modality ...for mass screening of asymptomatic women. However, it has decreased sensitivity in radiographically dense breasts, which is also associated with a higher risk for breast cancer. Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is an emerging modality that enables deep tissue imaging of optical contrast at ultrasonically defined spatial resolution, which is much higher than that can be achieved in purely optical imaging modalities. Because of high optical absorption from hemoglobin molecules, PA imaging can map out hemo distribution and dynamics in breast tissue and identify malignant lesions based on tumor associated angiogenesis and hypoxia. We review various PA breast imaging systems proposed over the past few years and summarize the PA features of breast cancer identified in these systems.
Flood control of the Yangtze River is an important part of China’s national water security. In July 2020, due to continuous heavy rainfall, the water levels along the middle-lower reaches of the ...Yangtze River and major lakes constantly exceeded the warning levels, in which Taihu Lake exceeded its highest safety water level and some stations of Poyang Lake reached their highest water levels in its history. In August 2020, another huge flood occurred in the Minjiang River and the Jialing River in the upper Yangtze River, and some areas of Chongqing Municipality and other cities along the rivers were inundated, resulting in great pressure on flood control and high disaster losses. The 2020 Yangtze River flood has received extensive media coverage and raised concerns on the roles of the Three Gorges Dam and other large reservoirs in flood control. Here we analyze the changes in the pattern of the Yangtze River flood control by comparing the strategies to tackle the three heavy floods occurring in 1954, 1998, and 2020. We propose that the overall strategy of the Yangtze River flood control in the new era should adhere to the principle of “Integration of storage and drainage over the entire Yangtze River Basin, with draining floods downstream as the first priority” by using both engineering and non-engineering measures. On the basis of embankments, the engineering measures should use the Three Gorges Dam and other large reservoirs as the major regulatory means, promote the construction of key flood detention areas, keep the floodways clear, and maintain the ecosystem services of wetlands and shoals. In terms of non-engineering measures, we should strengthen adaptive flood risk management under climate change, standardize the use of lands in flood detention areas, give space to floods, and promote the implementation of flood risk maps and flood insurance policies. The ultimate goal of this new flood control system is to enhance the adaptability to frequent floods and increase the resilience to extreme flood disasters.
We test the cosmic anisotropy in the dipole-modulated
Λ
CDM model and Finslerian cosmological model with the recently-released quasar sample. Based on the redshift tomographic method, the quasar ...sample is divided into two subsets
z
≤
z
cut
and
z
>
z
cut
by different cutting redshifts. The dipole amplitudes of the two cosmological models from the subsets
z
≤
z
cut
are very weak. We find that quasars at a higher redshift range may provide more detailed information about the dipole amplitude
A
D
. The dipole directions of each cosmological model from the subsets
z
≤
1.1
and
z
>
1.1
are deviated by
1
σ
level. The Pantheon sample is combined with the two subsets. The dipole amplitude from the two combined datasets is also very weak. In the dipole-modulated
Λ
CDM model, the dipole direction from the combined dataset quasar at
z
≤
1.1
and Pantheon sample is far away from the one given by the Pantheon sample. In the Finslerian cosmological model, the dipole directions from the two combined datasets are close to the one in the Pantheon sample.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Waterlogging is one of the major water issues in most cities of China and directly restricts their urbanization processes.The construction of Sponge City is an effective approach to solving the urban ...water issues,particularly for the waterlogging.In this study,both the urban issues emerged at the stage of rapid urbanization in China and the demands as well as problems of Sponge City construction related with the water issues were investigated,and the opportunities and challenges for the Sponge City construction in the future were also proposed.It was found that the current stormwater management focused on the construction of gray infrastructures（e.g.,drainage network and water tank） based on the fast discharge idea,which was costly and hard to catch up with the rapid expansion of city and its impervious surface,while green infrastructures（e.g.,river,lake and wetland）were ignored.Moreover,the current construction of Sponge City was still limited to low impacted development（LID） approach which was concentrated on source control measures without consideration of the critical functions of surrounding landscapes（i.e.,mountain,river,wetland,forest,farmland and lake）,while application of the integrated urban water system approach and its supported technologies including municipal engineering,urban hydrology,environmental science,social science and ecoscape were relatively weak and needed to be improved.Besides,the lack of special Sponge City plan and demonstration area was also a considerable problem.In this paper,some perspectives on Good Sponge City Construction were proposed such as the point that idea of urban plan and construction should conform to the integral and systematic view of sustainable urban development.Therefore,both the basic theoretical research and the basic infrastructure construction such as monitoring system,drainage facility and demonstration area should be strengthened,meanwhile,the reformation and innovation in the urban water management system and the education system should also be urgently performed.The study was expected to provide a deeper thinking for the current Sponge City construction in China and to give some of suggestions for the future directions to urban plan and construction,as well as urban hydrology discipline.
Aggregation of amyloid-β peptides into fibrils or other self-assembled states is central to the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. Fibrils formed in vitro by 40- and 42-residue amyloid-β peptides ...(Aβ40 and Aβ42) are polymorphic, with variations in molecular structure that depend on fibril growth conditions. Recent experiments suggest that variations in amyloid-β fibril structure in vivo may correlate with variations in Alzheimer's disease phenotype, in analogy to distinct prion strains that are associated with different clinical and pathological phenotypes. Here we investigate correlations between structural variation and Alzheimer's disease phenotype using solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR) measurements on Aβ40 and Aβ42 fibrils prepared by seeded growth from extracts of Alzheimer's disease brain cortex. We compared two atypical Alzheimer's disease clinical subtypes-the rapidly progressive form (r-AD) and the posterior cortical atrophy variant (PCA-AD)-with a typical prolonged-duration form (t-AD). On the basis of ssNMR data from 37 cortical tissue samples from 18 individuals, we find that a single Aβ40 fibril structure is most abundant in samples from patients with t-AD and PCA-AD, whereas Aβ40 fibrils from r-AD samples exhibit a significantly greater proportion of additional structures. Data for Aβ42 fibrils indicate structural heterogeneity in most samples from all patient categories, with at least two prevalent structures. These results demonstrate the existence of a specific predominant Aβ40 fibril structure in t-AD and PCA-AD, suggest that r-AD may relate to additional fibril structures and indicate that there is a qualitative difference between Aβ40 and Aβ42 aggregates in the brain tissue of patients with Alzheimer's disease.
The flexural performance of steel and concrete composite beams can be further enhanced by utilizing advanced construction materials such as ultra-high performance fiber-reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) ...and high-strength steel. In this paper, the concept of critical elastic moment resistance is proposed and the equation for its estimation is derived. It was found that the high yield strength of steel calls for a narrow UHPFRC top layer to reach the critical state, whereas this ideal condition is not realistic for composite beams with normal-strength steel and UHPFRC. Small-scale composite beams composed of both high-strength and low-strength steel materials were tested under four-point bending to verify the critical state and performance of different types of connectors. The headed studs and plate connectors were first tested through small-scale push-out tests and then implemented in the composite beam with different spacing. The connection utilizing headed studs with 150 mm spacing performed the best among the three tested specimens in helping reach the critical elastic moment resistance. Finite element analyses of the composite beam were performed based on the estimated material properties under axial and biaxial stress conditions and the results align with the experiment results.
Starvation not only affects the nutritional and health status of the animals, but also the microbial composition in the host's intestine. Next-generation sequencing provides a unique opportunity to ...explore gut microbial communities and their interactions with hosts. However, studies on gut microbiomes have been conducted predominantly in humans and land animals. Not much is known on gut microbiomes of aquatic animals and their changes under changing environmental conditions. To address this shortcoming, we determined the microbial gene catalogue, and investigated changes in the microbial composition and host-microbe interactions in the intestine of Asian seabass in response to starvation.
We found 33 phyla, 66 classes, 130 orders and 278 families in the intestinal microbiome. Proteobacteria (48.8%), Firmicutes (15.3%) and Bacteroidetes (8.2%) were the three most abundant bacteria taxa. Comparative analyses of the microbiome revealed shifts in bacteria communities, with dramatic enrichment of Bacteroidetes, but significant depletion of Betaproteobacteria in starved intestines. In addition, significant differences in clusters of orthologous groups (COG) functional categories and orthologous groups were observed. Genes related to antibiotic activity in the microbiome were significantly enriched in response to starvation, and host genes related to the immune response were generally up-regulated.
This study provides the first insights into the fish intestinal microbiome and its changes under starvation. Further detailed study on interactions between intestinal microbiomes and hosts under dynamic conditions will shed new light on how the hosts and microbes respond to the changing environment.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
As one kind of Burgers-type equation, the extended coupled (2+1)-dimensional Burgers system is used to describe certain wave process in oceanography, acoustics or hydrodynamics. With the Riccati ...projective equation method and symbolic computation, the variable separation solution is derived. Due to the arbitrary functions in the variable separation solutions, the fractal and chaotic structures are studied based on the gradient function (say,
U
in the text). Some excitation properties of the solutions are analyzed and figures are plotted to show the shape and the structure.
•A new approach is proposed to search for the interaction solutions, which can decrease the complexity of the associated nonlinear algebraic equations via reducing the number of the variables.•The ...fast calculation approach provides the condition for the predictability of the interaction solution.•Interaction phenomena between lump wave and a stipe, and lump wave and soliton solution are discussed and numerically simulated.
The cylindrical Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (cKP) equation related to cylindrical geometry, as one type of the variable-coefficient KP equation, is widely used to describe nonlinear phenomena in fluid, plasma and other fields. With symbolic computation, we have derived the multi-soliton solutions, rational solutions, lump solutions and interaction solutions to the cKP equation based on its bilinear representation. The interaction solutions include two types: The interaction between lump and stripe, and the interaction between lump and soliton. Moreover, we have proposed a new approach to search for the interaction solutions, which can decrease the complexity of the associated nonlinear algebraic equations via reducing the number of the variables. The fast calculation approach provides the condition for the predictability of the interaction solution.
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