Guided flows in coronal magnetic flux tubes

There is evidence for coronal plasma flows to break down into fragments and to be laminar. We investigate this effect by modeling flows confined along magnetic channels. We consider a full MHD model of a solar atmosphere box with a dipole magnetic field. We compare the propagation of a cylindrical flow perfectly aligned to the field to that of another one with a slight misalignment. We assume a flow speed of 200 km/s, and an ambient magnetic field of 30 G. We find that while the aligned flow maintains its cylindrical symmetry while it travels along the magnetic tube, the misaligned one is rapidly squashed on one side, becoming laminar and eventually fragmented because of the interaction and backreaction of the magnetic field. This model could explain an observation of erupted fragments that fall back as thin and elongated strands and end up onto the solar surface in a hedge-like configuration, made by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The initial alignment of plasma flow plays an important role in determining the possible laminar structure and fragmentation of flows while they travel along magnetic channels.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication, movies available upon request to the first autho

Video-assisted thoracic bronchial sleeve lobectomy with bronchoplasty for treatment of lung cancer confined to a single lung lobe: a case series of Chinese patients

BACKGROUND: The outcomes of video-assisted thoracic bronchial sleeve lobectomy (VABSL), a minimally invasive video-assisted thoracoscopic (VATS) lobectomy, are mostly unknown in Chinese patients. OBJECTIVES: To investigate operative and postoperative outcomes of VABSL in a cases series of Chinese patients with lung cancer. METHODS: Retrospective study of 9 patients (male:female 8:1; mean age 59.4 ± 17.6 years, ranging 21–79 years) diagnosed with lung cancer of a single lobe, treated with VABSL between March 2009 and November 2011, and followed up for at least 2 months (mean follow-up: 14.17 ± 12.91 months). Operative outcomes (tumor size, operation time, estimated blood loss and blood transfusion), postoperative outcomes (intensive care unit [ICU] stay, hospitalization length and pathological tumor stage), death, tumor recurrence and safety were assessed. RESULTS: Patients were diagnosed with carcinoid cancer (11.1%), squamous carcinoma (66.7%) or small cell carcinoma (22.2%), affecting the right (77.8%) or left (22.2%) lung lobes in the upper (55.6%), middle (11.1%) or lower (33.3%) regions. TNM stages were T2 (88.9%) or T3 (11.1%); N0 (66.7%), N1 (11.1%) or N2 (22.2%); and M0 (100%). No patient required conversion to thoracotomy. Mean tumor size, operation time and blood loss were 2.50 ± 0.75 cm, 203 ± 20 min and 390 ± 206 ml, respectively. Patients were treated in the ICU for 18.7 ± 0.7 hours, and overall hospitalization duration was 20.8 ± 2.0 days. No deaths, recurrences or severe complications were reported. CONCLUSIONS: VABSL surgery is safe and effective for treatment of lung cancer by experienced physicians, warranting wider implementation of VABSL and VATS training in China

Needle δ13C and mobile carbohydrates in Pinus koraiensis in relation to decreased temperature and increased moisture along an elevational gradient in NE China

A tree's crown interacts with atmospheric variables such as CO2, temperature, and humidity. Physioecology of leaves/needles (e.g. δ13C, mobile carbohydrates, and nitrogen) is, therefore, strongly affected by microclimate in and surrounding a tree crown. To understand the physiological responses of leaves to changes in air temperature and moisture, we measured δ13C, soluble sugars, starch, and total nitrogen (N) concentrations in current year and 1-yr-old needles of Pinus koraiensis trees, and compared the growing season air temperature and relative humidity within and outside P. koraiensis crowns along an elevational gradient from 760 to 1,420ma.s.l. on Changbai Mountain, NE China. Our results indicated that needle N and mobile carbohydrates concentrations, as well as needle δ13C values changed continuously with increasing elevation, corresponding to a continuous decrease in air temperature and an increase in relative humidity. Needle carbon and nitrogen status is highly significantly negatively correlated with temperature, but positively correlated with relative humidity. These results indicate that increases in air temperature in combination with decreases in relative humidity may result in lower levels of N and mobile carbohydrates in P. koraiensis trees, suggesting that future climate changes such as global warming and changes in precipitation patterns will directly influence the N and carbon physiology at P. koraiensis individual level, and indirectly affect the competitive ability, species composition, productivity and functioning at the stand and ecosystem level in NE China. Due to the relatively limited range of the transect (760-1,420m) studied, further research is needed to explain whether the present results are applicable to scales across large elevational gradient

Gapped Ferromagnetic Graphene Nanoribbons

We theoretically design a graphene-based all-organic ferromagnetic semiconductor by terminating zigzag graphene nanoribbons (ZGNRs) with organic magnets. A large spin-split gap with 100% spin polarized density of states near the Fermi energy is obtained, which is of potential application in spin transistors. The interplays among electron, spin and lattice degrees of freedom are studied using the first-principles calculations combined with fundamental model analysis. All of the calculations consistently demonstrate that although no d electrons existing, the antiferromagnetic \pi-\pi exchange together with the strong spin-lattice interactions between organic magnets and ZGNRs make the ground state ferromagnetic. The fundamental physics makes it possible to optimally select the organic magnets towards practical applications.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Healing Powers of BERT: How Task-Specific Fine-Tuning Recovers Corrupted Language Models

Language models like BERT excel at sentence classification tasks due to extensive pre-training on general data, but their robustness to parameter corruption is unexplored. To understand this better, we look at what happens if a language model is "broken", in the sense that some of its parameters are corrupted and then recovered by fine-tuning. Strategically corrupting BERT variants at different levels, we find corrupted models struggle to fully recover their original performance, with higher corruption causing more severe degradation. Notably, bottom-layer corruption affecting fundamental linguistic features is more detrimental than top-layer corruption. Our insights contribute to understanding language model robustness and adaptability under adverse conditions, informing strategies for developing resilient NLP systems against parameter perturbations

Genetic linkage maps of Pinus koraiensis Sieb. et Zucc. based on AFLP markers

Genetic linkage maps provide essential information for molecular breeding. In this paper, the genetic linkage map of Pinus koraiensis was constructed using an F1 progeny of 88 individuals. One hundred and thirty (130) of molecular markers were mapped onto 6 linkage groups, 4 triples and 15 pairs at the linkage criteria LOD 4.0. Nine primer combinations were applied to map construction. The consensus map gained covers 620.909 cM, with an average marker spacing of 4.776 cM. The presented map provides crucial information for future genomic studies of P. koraiensis, in particular for QTL (quantitative trait loci) mapping of economically important breeding target traits.Keywords: Genetic mapping, Korean pine, linkage map, marker-aided selectionAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 9(35), pp. 5659-5664, 30 August, 201

Optimal Demand Shut-offs of AC Microgrid using AO-SBQP Method

Microgrids are increasingly being utilized to improve the resilience and operational flexibility of power grids, and act as a backup power source during grid outages. However, it necessitates that the microgrid itself could provide power to the critical loads. This paper presents an algorithm named alternating optimization based sequential boolean quadratic programming tailored for solving optimal demand shut-offs problems arising in microgrids. Moreover, we establish local superlinear convergence of the proposed approximate Boolean quadratic programming method over nonconvex problems. In the end, the performance of the proposed method is illustrated on the modified IEEE 30-bus case study

The Effects of Weather on Passenger Flow of Urban Rail Transit

Predicting passenger flow on urban rail transit is important for the planning, design and decision-making of rail transit. Weather is an important factor that affects the passenger flow of rail transit by changing the travel mode choice of urban residents. This study aims to explore the influence of weather on urban rail transit ridership, taking four cities in China as examples, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu. To determine the weather effect on daily ridership rate, the three models were proposed with different combinations of the factors of temperature and weather type, using linear regression method.   The large quantities of data were applied to validate the developed models.  The results show that in Guangzhou, the daily ridership rate of rail transit increases with increasing temperature. In Chengdu, the ridership rate increases in rainy days compared to sunny days. While, in Beijing and Shanghai, the ridership rate increases in light rainfall and heavy rainfall (except moderate rainfall) compared to sunny days. The research findings are important to understand the impact of weather on passenger flow of urban rail transit. The findings can provide effective strategies to rail transit operators to deal with the fluctuation in daily passenger flow