A Raman investigation on the boron form occurring in salt lake brine during evaporation

Boron resources are abundant in Da Qaidam salt lake of Qaidamu Basin. It has been given great attention for the polyborate species present in brine. In this study, the Raman spectroscopy was applied to investigate the existing-form of boron in brine during evaporation. The prepared solutions of MgO·2B2O3-H2O, MgO·2B2O3-MgCl2 -H2O, and MgO·2B2O3-MgSO4-H2O was also evaporated and recorded to study the influence of boron concentration, pH, and electrolytes on the borate speciation in brine. The mononborates of B(OH)3 and B(OH)4- were found to be the only forms present in the original salt lake brine. Brine evaporation promotes the formation of polyborate anions B3O3(OH)4-, B5O6(OH)4-, and B6O7(OH)62- and also disappearance of the B(OH)4- ion in brine with boron concentration of more than 11 g/L in B2O3. The pentaborate ion of B5O6(OH)4- was sensitive to the solution pH and found to be appeared under the pH value of 8.0. While the hexaborate ion of B6O7(OH)62- was observed more dependent on the electrolyte of magnesium chloride due to its special properties, such as promoting boron accumulation, lowering solution pH, and also the strong af?nity for water molecules, which is beneficial to the polymerization of borate ions in brine. The interaction mechanisms among polyborate anions during evaporation had also been proposed.     

The evolution of the spatial-temporal patterns of global energy security since the 1990s

Journal of Geographical Sciences - In this study, we developed an energy security evaluation model (ESEM) from three dimensions, energy supply-transport security, safety of energy utilization, and...     

The Belt and Road: Geographical pattern and regional risks

Journal of Geographical Sciences - Building the Belt and Road is initiatives of China to promote win-win international cooperation in the new era, aiming at green, health, intellect and peace and...     

Multiscale geographically and temporally weighted regression: exploring the spatiotemporal determinants of housing prices

Understanding scale effects is important and indispensable for geography studies. However, spatial and spatiotemporal statistical tools for measuring the operational scales of different processes are rather limited. This article extends the popular geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model to consider operational scale effects by proposing multiscale GTWR (MGTWR), which offers a flexible and scalable framework for identifying and analysing multiscale processes by specifying flexible bandwidths for various covariates. Then, MGTWR is employed to explore spatiotemporal variations and how influential factors are associated with housing prices in Shenzhen. This article attempts to extend GTWR to MGTWR in consideration of scale effects, thereby highlighting the importance of different levels of spatiotemporal heterogeneity. Furthermore, the empirical results of this study can provide valuable policy implications for real estate development in areas where urban planning should address multiscale effects in both temporal and spatial dimensions.     

Examining the sensitivity of spatial scale in cellular automata Markov chain simulation of land use change

Understanding the spatial scale sensitivity of cellular automata is crucial for improving the accuracy of land use change simulation. We propose a framework based on a response surface method to comprehensively explore spatial scale sensitivity of the cellular automata Markov chain (CA-Markov) model, and present a hybrid evaluation model for expressing simulation accuracy that merges the strengths of the Kappa coefficient and of Contagion index. Three Landsat-Thematic Mapper remote sensing images of Wuhan in 1987, 1996, and 2005 were used to extract land use information. The results demonstrate that the spatial scale sensitivity of the CA-Markov model resulting from individual components and their combinations are both worthy of attention. The utility of our proposed hybrid evaluation model and response surface method to investigate the sensitivity has proven to be more accurate than the single Kappa coefficient method and more efficient than traditional methods. The findings also show that the CA-Markov model is more sensitive to neighborhood size than to cell size or neighborhood type considering individual component effects. Particularly, the bilateral and trilateral interactions between neighborhood and cell size result in a more remarkable scale effect than that of a single cell size.     

Spatiotemporal heterogeneity and influencing mechanism of ecosystem services in the Pearl River Delta from the perspective of LUCC

Journal of Geographical Sciences - Land use/land cover change (LUCC) has considerable impact on ecosystem services. It is essential to quantify the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of ecosystem...     

A surface network based method for studying urban hierarchies by night time light remote sensing data

Urban hierarchies are closely related to economic growth, urban planning and sustainable urban development. Due to the limited availability of reliable statistical data at fine scales, most existing studies on urban hierarchy characterization failed to capture the detailed urban spatial structure information. Previous studies have demonstrated that night time light data are correlated with many urban socio-economic indicators and hence can be used to characterize urban hierarchies. This paper presents a novel method for studying urban hierarchies from night time light data. Night time light data were first conceptualized as continuous mathematical surfaces, termed night time light surfaces. From the morphology of these surfaces the corresponding surface networks were derived. Hereafter, a night time light intensity (NTLI) graph was defined to describe the morphology of the surface network. Then, structural similarity between the night time light surfaces of any two different cities was calculated via a threshold-based maximum common induced graph searching algorithm. Finally, urban hierarchies were defined on the basis of the structural similarities between different cities. Using the 2015 annual NPP-VIIRS night time light data, the urban hierarchies of 32 major cities in China were successfully examined. The results are highly consistent with the reference urban hierarchies.     

Recognition of Significant Surface Soil Geochemical Anomalies Via Weighted 3D Shortest-Distance Field of Subsurface Orebodies: A Case Study in the Hongtoushan Copper Mine,NE China

Natural Resources Research - Quantitative prediction of concealed mineralization is always confronted with difficulties in comprehensive analysis between 2D and 3D data and between qualitative and...     

基于线粒体COI和16S rRNA基因的中国沿海相手蟹系统发育研究

相手蟹科的诸多种类因其形态极其相似成为方蟹总科分类中疑问较多的一个类群。通过对中国沿海相手蟹线粒体COI和16S rRNA基因序列进行分子系统发育分析,结果表明14种相手蟹COI和16S rRNA基因序列之间差异分别为5.7%～14.5%和1.5%～12.1%,均达到了种间差异水平。构建的系统发育树显示,14种相手蟹分别为独立有效物种,但分属于拟相手蟹属和近相手蟹属的4种拟相手蟹和3种近相手蟹,没有分别形成2个独立的支系,而是混合聚成一大支系。而属于螳臂相手蟹属的无齿螳臂相手蟹则首先与属于中相手蟹属的中华中相手蟹聚成一支,再与红螯螳臂相手蟹聚为一大支,表现出与形态分类的不一致。错综复杂的分子系统关系预示着相手蟹类为多系起源,也表明它们之间的种间关系乃至于属间关系尚有诸多问题有待进一步厘定。     

利用综合评分方法评估CMIP5模式对北极海冰的模拟能力

北极海冰冰盖自20世纪以来经历了前所未有的缩减,这使得北极海冰异常对大气环流的反馈作用日益显现。尽管目前的气候模式模拟北极海冰均为减少的趋势,但各模式间仍然存在较大的分散性。为了评估模式对于北极海冰变化及其气候效应的模拟能力,我们将海冰线性趋势和年际异常两者结合起来构造了一种合理的衡量指标。我们还强调巴伦支与卡拉海的重要性,因为前人研究证明此区域海冰异常是近年来影响大尺度大气环流变异的关键因子。根据我们设定的标准,CMIP5模式对海冰的模拟可被归为三种类型。这三组多模式集合平均之间存在巨大的差异,验证了这种分组方法的合理性。此外,我们还进一步探讨了造成模式海冰模拟能力差别的潜在物理因子。结果表明模式所采用的臭氧资料集对海冰模拟能力有显著的影响。