Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a vital oxidant in the atmosphere and plays critical roles in the oxidation chemistry of both liquid and aerosol phases. The partitioning of H2O2 between the gas and liquid phase or the aerosol phase could affect its abundance in these condensed phases and eventually the formation of secondary components. However, the partitioning processes of H2O2 in gas-liquid and gas-aerosol phases are still unclear, especially in the ambient atmosphere. In this study, field observations of gas-, liquid-, and aerosol-phase H2O2 were carried out in the urban atmosphere of Beijing during the summer and winter of 2018. The effective field-derived mean value of Henry’s law constant ( , 2.1 × 105 M atm−1) was 2.5 times of the theoretical value in pure water ( , 8.4 × 104 M atm−1) at 298 ± 2 K. The effective derived gas-aerosol partitioning coefficient ( , 3.8 × 10−3 m3 mg−1) was four orders of magnitude higher on average than the theoretical value ( , 2.8 × 10−7 m3 mg−1) at 270 ± 4 K. Beyond following Henry’s law or Pankow’s absorptive partitioning theory, the partitioning of H2O2 in the gas-liquid and gas-aerosol phases in the ambient atmosphere was also influenced by certain physical and chemical reactions. The average concentration of liquid-phase H2O2 in rainwater during summer was 44.12 ± 26.49 mM. In 69 % of the collected rain samples, the measured level of H2O2 was greater than the predicted value in pure water calculated by Henry’s law. In these samples, 41 % of the measured H2O2 was from gas-phase partitioning, while most of the rest may be from residual H2O2 in raindrops. In winter, the level of aerosol-phase H2O2 was 0.093 ± 0.085 ng mg−1, which was much higher than the predicted value based on Pankow’s absorptive partitioning theory. The contribution of partitioning of the gas-phase H2O2 to the aerosol-phase H2O2 formation was negligible. The decomposition/hydrolysis rate of aerosol-phase organic peroxides could account for 11−74 % of the consumption rate of aerosol-phase H2O2, and the value depended on the composition of organic peroxides in the aerosol particles. Furthermore, the heterogeneous uptake of HO2 and H2O2 on aerosols contributed to 22 % and 2 % of the aerosol-phase H2O2 consumption, respectively.
Passive millimeter-wave (PMMW) radiation of Kelvin wake is helpful for ship detection. A local coordinate system is established at each small facet to calculate the brightness temperature of Kelvin Wake. The influence of ship speed and draft on brightness temperature of Kelvin wake is simulated. An outdoor experiment was conducted to measure the brightness temperature of Kelvin wake. The experiment result verifies the theory and simulation.
Perceived social discrimination in China has significant effects on drinking behavior. This finding was reached through multivariate logistic regression analysis of a sample of 22,566 adults in the 2016 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). This was a cross-sectional study conducted with computer-assisted face-to-face interviews to assess alcohol drinking problems and associated factors among Chinese adults. The proportion of adults prone to alcoholism tends to be higher in eastern than central China, and higher in central than western China. Furthermore, gender discrimination and delays in government interactions as a result of unfair treatment have a positive and significant effect on individuals’ drinking. The alcohol consumption rate among Chinese men is about 13 times that of Chinese women. Additionally, older people have a stronger tendency to drink alcohol. In terms of education, those with lower education levels are more prone to alcoholism than those with higher education levels. Regarding marital status, those who are married are more prone to alcoholism than those who are not. Further, those who have been diagnosed with a chronic disease within the past six months are less prone to alcoholism than those without such diagnosis. People with an annual income between 50,000 and 150,000 yuan are more prone to alcoholism than those with an income under 50,000 yuan. Groups that have experienced unequal treatment in public services are also more prone to alcoholism than those who do not suffer such unequal treatment.
One interesting observation of perceptual learning is the asymmetric transfer between stimuli at different external noise levels: learning at zero/low noise can transfer significantly to the same stimulus at high noise, but not vice versa. The mechanisms underlying this asymmetric transfer have been investigated by psychophysical, neurophysiological, brain imaging, and computational modeling studies. One study (PNAS 113 (2016) 5724-5729) reported that rTMS stimulations of dorsal and ventral areas impair motion direction discrimination of moving dot stimuli at 40% coherent (“noisy”) and 100% coherent (zero-noise) levels, respectively. However, after direction training at 100% coherence, only rTMS stimulation of the ventral cortex is effective, disturbing direction discrimination at both coherence levels. These results were interpreted as learning-induced changes of functional specializations of visual areas. We have concerns with the behavioral data of this study. First, contrary to the report of highly location-specific motion direction learning, our replicating experiment showed substantial learning transfer (e.g., transfer/learning ratio = 81.9% vs. 14.8% at 100% coherence). Second and more importantly, we found complete transfer of direction learning from 40% to 100% coherence, a critical baseline that is missing in this study. The transfer effect suggests that similar brain mechanisms underlie motion direction processing at two coherence levels. Therefore, this study’s conclusions regarding the roles of dorsal and ventral areas in motion direction processing at two coherence levels, as well as the effects of perceptual learning, are not supported by proper experimental evidence. It remains unexplained why distinct impacts of dorsal and ventral rTMS stimulations on motion direction discrimination were observed.
Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) is widely used as a visible-light-driven photocatalyst but limited by the rapid photoexcited electron-hole pairs recombination rate. To promote the photocatalytic activity of g-C3N4, a class of heterojunction photocatalysts, perovskite-type sodium niobate (NaNbO3) nanorods modified g-C3N4 (SNCN), was fabricated through a two-step hydrothermal and thermal polymerization method in this study. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) demonstrated the successful decoration of NaNbO3 onto g-C3N4, as well as the formation of material interface with high reactivity. The optimal material (SNCN-3) exhibited an extremely high degradation efficiency of ofloxacin (OFL) under simulated solar light, as the kinetic rate constant (k) was 29.6 and 10.4 times of that for the neat g-C3N4 and NaNbO3, respectively. Energy band structure analysis indicated that SNCN-3 was a type II heterojunction. Moreover, surface photovoltage (SPV), photoluminescence (PL) and transient photocurrent response measurements confirmed SNCN-3 had the highest electron-hole separation efficiency compared with NaNbO3, g-C3N4 and the other SNCN composites. Quenching tests indicated that O2– and holes were the primary reactive species for OFL degradation. Density functional theory (DFT) calculation on further revealed the atoms of OFL with high Fukui index (f 0) preferred to be attacked by the produced radicals. Cleavage of piperazine moiety and substitution of F were the key OFL degradation pathways. In addition, the reduced toxicity of transformation products after photocatalysis verified the proposed technique was a green method. This work provided the promising application of g-C3N4/NaNbO3 heterojunction photocatalysts for degradation of antibiotic pollutants in water.
Chemical speciation of ionizable antibiotics greatly affects its photochemical kinetics and mechanisms; however, the mechanistic impact of chemical speciation is not well understood. For the first time, the impact of different dissociation species (cationic, zwitterionic and anionic forms) of ciprofloxacin (CIP) on its photocatalytic transformation fate was systematically studied in a UVA/LED/TiO2 system. The dissociation forms of CIP at different pH affected the photocatalytic degradation kinetics, transformation products (TPs) formation as well as degradation pathways. Zwitterionic form of CIP exhibited the highest degradation rate constant (0.2217 ± 0.0179 min−1), removal efficiency of total organic carbon (TOC) and release of fluoride ion (F−). Time-dependent evolution profiles on TPs revealed that the cationic and anionic forms of CIP mainly underwent piperazine ring dealkylation, while zwitterionic CIP primarily proceeded through defluorination and piperazine ring oxidation. Moreover, density functional theory (DFT) calculation based on Fukui index well interpreted the active sites of different CIP species. Potential energy surface (PES) analysis further elucidated the reaction transition state (TS) evolution and energy barrier (ΔEb) for CIP with different dissociation species after radical attack. This study provides deep insights into degradation mechanisms of emerging organic contaminants in advanced oxidation processes associated to their chemical speciation.
Mechanisms underlying species richness patterns remain a central yet controversial issue in biology. Climate has been regarded as a major determinant of species richness. However, the relative influences of different evolutionary processes, (i.e. niche conservatism, diversification rate and time for speciation) on species richness–climate relationships remain to be tested. Here, using newly compiled distribution maps for 11 422 woody plant species in eastern Eurasia, we estimated species richness patterns for all species and for families with tropical and temperate affinities separately, and explored the phylogenetic signals in species richness patterns of different families and their relationships with contemporary climate and climate change since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). We further compared the effects of niche conservatism (represented by contemporary-ancestral climatic niches differences), diversification rate and time for speciation (represented by family age) on variation in the slopes of species richness–climate relationships. We found that winter coldness was the best predictor for species richness patterns of most tropical families while Quaternary climate change was the best predictor for those of most temperate families. Species richness patterns of closely-related families were more similar than those of distantly-related families within eudicots, and significant phylogenetic signals characterized the slopes of species richness–climate relationships across all angiosperm families. Contemporary-ancestral climatic niche differences dominated variation in the relationships between family-level species richness and most climate variables. Our results indicate significant phylogenetic conservatism in family-level species richness patterns and their relationships with contemporary climate within eudicots. These findings shed light on the mechanisms underlying large-scale species richness patterns and suggest that ancestral climatic niche may influence the evolution of species richness–climate relationships in plants through niche conservatism.
Piezoelectricity, as a kind of physical phenomenon, is a coupling between a material’s mechanical and electrical behavior. Herein, the local accumulated charges on the surface of piezoelectric material were used to break OO bond of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) to induce its activation for the benzothiazole (BTH) removal. Taking BaTiO3 as a model piezocatalyst, up to 97 % of BTH was degraded within 30 min in BaTiO3/PMS/force system, which was respective 40 %, 79 %, 83 % higher than that in BaTiO3/force piezocatalysis, force/PMS oxidation, and BaTiO3/PMS adsorption. A significant synergistic effect was observed since the reaction rate constant of BaTiO3/PMS/force was 3 times higher than the sum of those later three processes. The possible activated mechanism was proposed based on reactive species analysis, DFT calculation and LCMS determination. The stability of the piezocatalyst and the treatment performance for real wastewater were studied to investigate the potential in practical applicability. All the results demonstrated that the BaTiO3 piezoelectricity can efficiently activate PMS to enhance BTH removal, which is a promising strategy for PMS activation, as well as a valuable insight for the piezoelectrical application in wastewater remediation.
Neuronal responses to one-dimensional orientations are combined to represent two-dimensional composite patterns, which plays a key role in intermediate-level vision such as texture segmentation. However, where and how the visual cortex starts to represent composite patterns, such as a plaid consisting of two superimposing gratings of different orientations, remains neurophysiologically elusive. Psychophysical and modeling evidence has suggested the existence of early neural mechanisms specialized in plaid detection [1-6], but the responses of V1 neurons to an optimally orientated grating are actually suppressed by a superimposing grating of different orientation (i.e., cross-orientation inhibition) [7, 8]. Would some other V1 neurons be plaid detectors? Here we used two-photon calcium imaging [9] to compare the responses of V1 superficial-layer neurons to gratings and plaids in awake macaques. We found that many non-orientation-tuned neurons responded weakly to gratings, but strongly to plaids, often with plaid orientation selectivity and cross-angle selectivity. In comparison, most (~94%) orientation-tuned neurons showed more or less cross-orientation inhibition, regardless of the relative stimulus contrasts. Only a small portion (~8%) of them showed plaid facilitation at off-peak orientations. These results suggest separate subpopulations of plaid and grating responding neurons. Because most plaid neurons (~95%) were insensitive to motion direction, they were plaid pattern detectors, not plaid motion detectors.
Objective: The genetic variant rs2237895, located in the Potassium Voltage-Gated Channel Subfamily Q Member 1 (KCNQ1) gene, has been replicated to be associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) susceptibility, but the relationship with lipids is conflicting. Furthermore, the common genetic predisposition to T2DM and lipids was not fully detected. Methods: In total, 5839 individuals (2220 were T2DM patients) across 2885 families were included. The effect of rs2237895 on T2DM and lipids was estimated using linear regression and logistic regression models after adjustment for multiple covariates. Mediation analysis was then used to test whether KCNQ1 participated in T2DM pathogenesis via lipid-mediated pathways. Results: Per allele-C of rs2237895 was associated with 17% (11-23%, P < 0.001) increased T2DM risk. Moreover, it was correlated with 5% (1-9%, P < 0.001) increased T2DM risk. Moreover, it was correlated with 5% (1-9%, P < 0.001) increased T2DM risk. Moreover, it was correlated with 5% (1-9%, P < 0.001) increased T2DM risk. Moreover, it was correlated with 5% (1-9%, P < 0.001) increased T2DM risk. Moreover, it was correlated with 5% (1-9%, P < 0.001) increased T2DM risk. Moreover, it was correlated with 5% (1-9%. Conclusion: KCNQ1 had pleiotropic effects on lipids and T2DM, and the unexpected genetic effect on association of HDL-C with T2DM was observed, indicating the different pathways to lipids and T2DM. Further research studies are needed to verify potential biological mechanisms.
The purpose of this paper is to take a diachronic approach and survey the pre-Roman and Roman evidence of communal feasting in Macedonia, in order to understand how such form of social action changed after a well-established form executed by the Macedonian monarchy came under the challenges posed by the years of turmoil following Rome's conquest. The basic premise of this paper is that feasting is a politically-embedded form of social occasion and naturally subject to manipulation. In turn, the scale of communal feasting would reflect different strategies of the manipulating parties, and in particular one can distinguish from the strongly aspirational type of communal feasting aimed at creating national and even sovereign symbolisms from the transactional types of communal feasting in which the host and the participants partake in the small-group manuvers of more limited socio-political implications. Evidence highlighted in this paper include the well-known Hagios Athanasios symposium frieze, the honorific inscription for Apollonios son of Apollonios from Kalindoia (SEG 35.744), and a sample of Macedonian inscriptions concerning local cultic associations and the Macedonian koinon.
By integrating azulene with a quinoid moiety, a novel non-alternant polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecule BCHF1 exhibiting manifold zwitterionic, quinoidal and diradical behaviors is designed and synthesized. Its zwitterionic feature is evidenced by the changes shown by the 1H-NMR and absorption spectra when the molecule undergoes reversible protonation and deprotonation reactions at varied pH. The diradical facet, manifesting a small singlet–triplet energy gap (ΔES–T), is characterized with a paramagnetic resonance signal detected by the EPR spectroscopy at room temperature. As the diradical properties are not observed in the protonated form, BCHF1+H+, a pH-controlled reversible magnetic switching behavior is illustrated by monitoring the on and off cycles of EPR signals upon successively adding bases and acids to a solution or exposing a thin film of BCHF1+H+ to base vapor followed by acid vapor.