Experimental evidence for eukaryotic fossil preservation: Onion skin cells in silica solution

Research on the origin of eukaryotes often focuses on the exceptional preservation found in silicified Precambrian fossils. Nuclei like subcellular structures in well-preserved fossil becomes confusion and arguments, which focus on whether the partial degradation of prokaryotes produces artifacts that resemble a ‘nucleus’, or fossilized nuclei of eukaryotes. In order to understand the mechanisms of silicification and identify the fossilized subcellular and microstructures in rocks, a series of laboratory controlled experiments were performed for simulating the silicification process. The effects of different silica solutions in eukaryote fossilization were studied in our experiments by exposing onion skin cells (epidermis) to silica solutions. Onion skin provides a good experimental model because of its well characterized cellular structures which are easily observed. The designed experiments revealed that the possibility of onion cell preserved as a “fossil” with nuclear structures, the first week fossilization, or mineralization as rapid as 1 week is important. And the experiment also revealed interactions between silica and the onion skin cell wall surface functional groups were weak. The preservation of nuclei in the onion skin model was due to precipitation in highly supersaturated silica solutions rather than simply the high silica concentration. When the silica gel precipitates slowly at low supersaturation states, the nuclei were not well preserved, but the rapid precipitation at high supersaturated silica conditions preserved nuclear structures. A better understanding of the processes involved in onion skin fossilization will further contribute to issues concerning the silicification of other eukaryotic materials.     

Identifying primary public transit corridors using multi-source big transit data

ABSTRACT

Effective public transit planning needs to address realistic travel demands, which can be illustrated by corridors across major residential areas and activity centers. It is vital to identify public transit corridors that contain the most significant transit travel demand patterns. We propose a two-stage approach to discover primary public transit corridors at high spatio-temporal resolutions using massive real-world smart card and bus trajectory data, which manifest rich transit demand patterns over space and time. The first stage was to reconstruct chained trips for individual passengers using multi-source massive public transit data. In the second stage, a shared-flow clustering algorithm was developed to identify public transit corridors based on reconstructed individual transit trips. The proposed approach was evaluated using transit data collected in Shenzhen, China. Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed approach is a practical tool for extracting time-varying corridors for many potential applications, such as transit planning and management.     

中国东部海陆热力差异与华南冬季雾霾的气候学关联

根据中国东部冬季海陆热力分异和耦合作用关系,构建了纬向海陆热力差异指标。从大气环流和降水角度,揭示了局地海陆热力差异对中国东部相对湿度变化的影响。基于此,探讨了局地海陆热力差异与华南地区冬季雾霾形成、转化和趋势变化的气候学关联。结果表明：冬季海陆热力对比显著的耦合区位于华南地区和菲律宾海东部海域,形成的局地海陆热力差异具有约17 a左右的年代际变化,20世纪80年代初其由强转弱的趋势突变明显。局地海陆热力差异增强时,华南地区冬季东北风异常加强,由东中国海（渤海、黄海和东海）及日本海向华南地区的水汽输送和降水也呈现增强趋势,这有利于华南地区相对湿度的异常增加。受局地海陆热力差异调控,华南地区偏湿期和偏干期约以17 a的周期交替出现。20世纪80年代之前的偏湿期,华南地区雾日条件湿度基本保持不变,之后环境相对湿度逐渐降低,引起雾日偏少。由于华南地区本底（平均）相对湿度更利于霾的形成,在污染物排放或迁移累积增强的情形下,相对湿度的降低抑制霾向雾的转化,使得雾日持续减少,而霾日趋于增加,特别在21世纪初的偏干峰值期霾日增加速率达到最高。21世纪20年代华南地区相继进入偏干期,气候变暖导致饱和比湿加大,未来霾天气趋多趋强、持续时间长等极端特性和高危险性特点将更为突显。     

最小二乘定权方法对流动重力计算结果的影响

在处理流动重力观测数据时,采用最小二乘方法解算由权系数和观测值组成的超定方程组,得到最优权值,并利用最优权计算重力值。结果表明,等权方法计算得到的结果点值精度不高,但包含了较全的重力异常地震分析预报信息;不等权方法计算得到的结果点值精度较高,但削弱了有用的重力异常地震分析预报信息;最小二乘方法计算得到的结果不但有较高的点值精度,对M_S4.0及以上地震的分析预报效果也最优。     

洞庭湖流域降水同位素与ENSO关系研究

基于洞庭湖流域内长沙市2010年1月至2012年12月降水事件、GNIP(Global Network for Isotopes in Precipitation)长沙站1988~1992年月降水同位素资料及ENSO（厄尔尼诺/拉尼娜和南方涛动）的2个常用指标（南方涛动指数SOI和Nino3区海面温度SST）,分析了流域降水同位素与ENSO关系。结果表明：洞庭湖流域降水中δ¹⁸O与降水量、气温在日、月尺度上均呈负相关且只有月度上与降水量的负相关不显著。洞庭湖流域降水中δ¹⁸O与ENSO的SST指标则呈显著正相关。ENSO对洞庭湖流域降水同位素的影响机制可能如下：春季,La Nina年源自西太平洋的东南风强盛,其转向为西南风的区域达到印度洋,而El Nino年,东南风转向为西南风的发生区域位于印度洋以东,前者有利于挟带印度洋远源水汽向中国东部区域输送,进而造成降水同位素的贫化;夏季,La Nina年印度洋水汽输送在中国南海转为经向继而向北延伸,而El Nino年,源自印度洋的水汽沿纬向穿过南海,在东海转向往北延伸,后者有利于挟带西太平洋的近源水汽输送到中国东部季风区,进而引起降水同位素的富集。     

Record Low Sea-Ice Concentration in the Central Arctic during Summer 2010

The Arctic sea-ice extent has shown a declining trend over the past 30 years. Ice coverage reached historic minima in 2007 and again in 2012. This trend has recently been assessed to be unique over at least the last 1450 years. In the summer of 2010, a very low sea-ice concentration(SIC) appeared at high Arctic latitudes—even lower than that of surrounding pack ice at lower latitudes. This striking low ice concentration—referred to here as a record low ice concentration in the central Arctic(CARLIC)—is unique in our analysis period of 2003–15, and has not been previously reported in the literature. The CARLIC was not the result of ice melt, because sea ice was still quite thick based on in-situ ice thickness measurements.Instead, divergent ice drift appears to have been responsible for the CARLIC. A high correlation between SIC and wind stress curl suggests that the sea ice drift during the summer of 2010 responded strongly to the regional wind forcing. The drift trajectories of ice buoys exhibited a transpolar drift in the Atlantic sector and an eastward drift in the Pacific sector,which appeared to benefit the CARLIC in 2010. Under these conditions, more solar energy can penetrate into the open water,increasing melt through increased heat flux to the ocean. We speculate that this divergence of sea ice could occur more often in the coming decades, and impact on hemispheric SIC and feed back to the climate.     

水下运动物体及海底地形的SAR探测的初步研究(一)水下运动物体的SAR仿真影像分析

当物体在水中运动时,它所引起的流场变化会调制海水表面的小尺度波动,从而可以被合成孔径雷达（ＳＡＲ）所探测。本文建立了一个三维半隐式格式,对水下运动物体的绕流问题进行了数值计算。在袁业立有关海波高谱形式及ＳＡＲ影像原理的理论分析基础上,本文进一步计算了水下运动物体ＳＡＲ影像的Ｇ值分布图,并讨论了物体深度、海水水深、海表面主波方向对水下运动物体ＳＡＲ影像的影响。     

关于台风风场研究进展的若干问题探讨

台风是对我国造成严重危害的中尺度天气系统,随着沿海地区经济的发展以及越来越多的海洋开发工程的进行,对台风的研究也日益受到重视。本文从台风的观测、理论和数值研究几个方面综合分析了台风研究中的若干问题,并对现阶段存在的问题进行了讨论。     

湖泊富营养化综合评价方法

从对湖泊富营养化评价的一般方法入手,综述了国内外有关湖泊富养化综合评价的一些方法,提出：营养状态指数法由于可对湖泊营养状态进行连续的数值化的分级,从而为湖泊富营养化机理的定量研究提供了坚实的基础,应是今后湖泊富营养化评价中的主要方法。