Discovery of six high-redshift quasars with the Lijiang 2.4 m telescope and the Multiple Mirror Telescope

Quasars with redshifts greater than 4 are rare, and can be used to probe the structure and evolution of the early universe. Here we report the discovery of six new quasars with i-band magnitudes brighter than 19.5 and redshifts between 2.4 and 4.6 from spectroscopy with the Yunnan Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera (YFOSC) at the Lijiang 2.4 m telescope in February, 2012. These quasars are in the list of z > 3.6 quasar candidates selected by using our proposed J K/i Y criterion and the photometric redshift estimations from the SDSS optical and UKIDSS near-IR photometric data. Nine candidates were observed by YFOSC, and five among six new quasars were identified as z > 3.6 quasars. One of the other three objects was identified as a star and the other two were unidentified due to the lower signal-to-noise ratio of their spectra. This is the first time that z > 4 quasars have been discovered using a telescope in China. Thanks to the Chinese Telescope Access Program (TAP), the redshift of 4.6 for one of these quasars was confirmed by the Multiple Mirror Telescope (MMT) Red Channel spectroscopy. The continuum and emission line properties of these six quasars, as well as their central black hole masses and Eddington ratios, were obtained.     

Layered farming for Marsupenaeus japonicus Bate

Marsupenaeusjaponicus Bate is one of the most valuable cultured shrimp species in China and outdoor earthen pond farming is the most common method of culturing this organism. The need to increase soil usage efficiency in aquaculture has been recognized and a great deal of research effort has been directed toward development of super-intensive farming systems. However, current research and development in this field is largely devoted to Litopenaeus vannamei Boone, while to M.japonicus Bate it has been neglected. In this study, a layered fanning system was designed and a 66-day study was conducted in M.japonicus Bate culture. The system comprised bracket and sand layers that divided a shrimp tank filled to a depth of 1.2 m into four water layers. Conventional tank culture （unlayered） was used as a control. The results show that survival rate, feed conversion efficiency and production of M.japonicus Bate in the layered farming system were 68%, 18%, and 0.59 kg/m^2, respectively, all of which are significantly higher than in the unlayered fanning system （P〈0.01）. These findings confirmed the possibility of using a layered system to culture M. japonicus Bate.     

城镇增长下的收缩：以武汉为例

首先从人口、经济、用地3个维度综合考察武汉市增长与收缩的全貌,并采用县区及街道2个尺度的数据定量描述了武汉市增长与收缩的特征与空间格局,发现武汉市下辖青山区、硚口区、汉阳区和蔡甸区存在局部较严重的收缩现象,空间上形成集聚,形态上呈“穿孔式”。进一步以青山区为案例,着重从资本视角探讨发生局部收缩的内在机制,发现其存在老龄化、少子化趋势,但局部收缩的主因是资本从产业部门的“逃逸”。     

Simulation and projection of climate change using CMIP6 Muti-models in the Belt and Road Region

Climate condition over a region is mostly determined by the changes in precipitation, temperature and evaporation as the key climate variables. The countries belong to the Belt and Road region are subjected to face strong changes in future climate. In this paper, we used five global climate models from the latest Sixth Phase of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) to evaluate future climate changes under seven combined scenarios of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and the Representative Concentration Pathways (SSP1-1.9, SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, SSP4-3.4, SSP4-6.0 and SSP5-8.5) across the Belt and Road region. This study focuses on undertaking a climate change assessment in terms of future changes in precipitation, air temperature and actual evaporation for the three distinct periods as near-term period (2021-2040), mid-term period (2041-2060) and long-term period (2081-2100). To discern spatial structure, K?ppen-Geiger Climate Classification method has been used in this study. In relative terms, the results indicate an evidence of increasing tendency in all the studied variables, where significant changes are anticipated mostly in the long-term period. In addition to, though it is projected to increase under all the SSP-RCP scenarios, greater increases will be happened under higher emission scenarios (SSP5-8.5 and SSP3-7.0). For temperature, robust increases in annual mean temperature is found to be 5.2 °C under SSP3-7.0, and highest 7.0 °C under SSP5-8.5 scenario relative to present day. The northern part especially Cold and Polar region will be even more warmer (+6.1 °C) in the long-term (2081-2100) period under SSP5-8.5. Similarly, at the end of the twenty-first century, annual mean precipitation is inclined to increase largely with a rate of 2.1% and 2.8% per decade under SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5 respectively. Spatial distribution demonstrates that the largest precipitation increases are to be pronounced in the Polar and Arid regions. Precipitation is projected to increase with response to increasing warming most of the regions. Finally, the actual evaporation is projected to increase significantly with rate of 20.3% under SSP3-7.0 and greatest 27.0% for SSP5-8.5 by the end of the century. It is important to note that the changes in evaporation respond to global mean temperature rise consistently in terms of similar spatial pattern for all the scenarios where stronger increase found in the Cold and Polar regions. The increase in precipitation is overruled by enhanced evaporation over the region. However, this study reveals that the CMIP6 models can simulate temperature better than precipitation over the Belt and Road region. Findings of this study could be the reliable basis for initiating policies against further climate induced impacts in the regional scale.     

Contribution to diffuse gamma-rays in the Galactic Centre region from unresolved millisecond pulsars

Diffuse gamma-rays in the Galactic Centre region have been studied. We propose that there exists a population of millisecond pulsars in the Galactic Centre, which emit GeV gamma-rays through synchrotron-curvature radiation as predicted by outer gap models. These GeV gamma-rays from unresolved millisecond pulsars probably contribute to the diffuse gamma-ray spectrum detected by EGRET which displays a break at a few GeV. We have used a Monte Carlo method to obtain simulated samples of millisecond pulsars in the Galactic Centre region covered by EGRET  (∼ 15)  according to the different period and magnetic field distributions from observed millisecond pulsars in the Galactic field and globular clusters, and superposed their synchrotron-curvature spectra to derive the total GeV flux. Our simulated results suggest that there probably exist about 6000 unresolved millisecond pulsars in the region of angular resolution of EGRET, the emissions of which could contribute significantly to the observed diffuse gamma-rays in the Galactic Centre.     

汶川地震震前龙门山以西地壳垂直隆升机理分析

结合流动GPS观测速度场及层析成像结果,构建跨龙门山断裂剖面的二维有限元分层模型,分两种情况讨论汶川地震前龙门山前缘地壳垂直隆升的物理机制,以及中、下地壳软物质垂向和横向的不均匀性对地壳隆升作用的影响。分析认为：川西高原相对四川盆地的差异抬升和龙门山以西地壳缩短的共同作用是汶川地震震前龙门山前缘地壳垂直隆升的可能原因。     

Trophic ecology of small yellow croaker (Larimichthys polyactis Bleeker): stable carbon and nitrogen isotope evidence

The trophic ecology of the small yellow croaker (Larimichthys polyactis) was studied using stable isotope analyses. Samples were collected from July to September 2009 and 34 individuals from eight sites were examined for stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes. Stable carbon isotope ratios (δ13C) ranged from -20.67 to -15.43, while stable nitrogen isotope ratios (δ15N) ranged 9.18-12.23. The relationship between δ13C and δ15N suggested high resource partitioning in the sampling area. Significant differences in stable isotope values among the eight sampling sites may be linked to environmental diversities involving various physical processes (such as ocean current, wind and tide) and different carbon sources. Furthermore, the stable isotope ratios may also explain the ontogenetic variability in diet and feeding, because δ13C and δ15N varied significantly with increasing body size. The findings are consistent with other studies on diet analyses in small yellow croaker. It was also demonstrated that stable isotope analysis could be used to estimate the trophic characters of small yellow croaker in feeding patterns and migrating habits.     

Reconstruction of cropland spatial patterns and its spatiotemporal changes over the 20th century on the Songnen Plain,Northeast China

We initially estimated the cropland area at county level using local historical documents for the Songnen Plain (SNP) in the 1910s and 1930s. We then allocated this cropland area to grid cells with a size of 1 km × 1 km, using a range of cultivation possibilities from high to low; this was based on topography and minimum distances to rivers, settlements, and traffic lines. Cropland areas for the 1950s were obtained from the Land Use Map of Northeast China, and map vectorization was performed with ArcGIS technology. Cropland areas for the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s were retrieved from Landsat images. We found that the cropland areas were 4.92 × 10⁴ km² and 7.60 × 10⁴ km², accounting for 22.8% and 35.2% of the total area of the SNP in the 1910s and 1930s, respectively, which increased to 13.14 × 10⁴ km², accounting for 60.9% in the 2010s. The cropland increased at a rate of 1.18 × 10⁴ km² per decade from the 1910s to 1970s while it was merely 0.285 × 10⁴ km² per decade from the 1970s to 2010s. From the 1910s to 1930s, new cultivation mainly occurred in the central SNP while, from the 1930s to 1970s, it was mainly over the western and northern parts. This spatially explicit reconstruction could be offered as primary data for studying the effects of changes in human-induced land cover based on climate change over the last century.     

Hα Dimming Associated With the Eruption of a Coronal Sigmoid in the Quiet Sun

We report on the occurrence of Hα dimming associated with a sigmoid eruption in a quiet-sun region on 14 August 2001. The coronal sigmoid in soft X-ray images from the Yohkoh Soft X-ray Telescope was located over an Hα filament channel. Its eruption was accompanied by a flare of GOES X-ray class C2.3 and possibly associated with a halo coronal mass ejection (CME) observed with the Large Angle and Spectroscopic Coronagraphs (LASCO) on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). During the eruption, coronal bipolar double dimming took place at the regions with opposite magnetic polarities around the two sigmoid ends, but the underlying chromospheric channel did not show observable changes corresponding to the coronal eruption. Different from the erupting coronal sigmoid itself, however, the coronal dimming had a detectable chromosphere counterpart, i.e., Hα dimming. By regarding the sigmoid as a coronal sign for a flux rope, these observations are explained in the framework of the flux rope model of CMEs. The flux rope is possibly deeply rooted in the chromosphere, and the coronal and Hα dimming regions mark its evacuated feet, through which the material is possibly fed to the halo CME.     

基于空间组合特征的农村居民点重构方向识别

农村居民点空间优化重构是推进乡村振兴的重要内容之一。以中国湖北省鄂州市为研究区,从人的生存生活需求出发,构建宜居性评价指标体系,评估鄂州市宜居性高低;通过网络分析法构建城乡人口流动网络,发现乡村人口流动规律。在此基础上,综合宜居性和人口流动强度的组合特征进行农村居民点空间重构。结果表明：(1)鄂州市整体宜居性较高,其中,生存保障功能差距较小,而生活服务功能和生活提升功能差距较大;(2)人口按照主城区、所属镇、附近优势城镇的优先顺序流动;城镇辐射范围有限,现有的点轴结构不能起到以点带面的作用,亟需发展中心村、一般村、基层村形成完整的乡村结构,带动全域发展;(3)基于乡村宜居性和人口流动强度将居民点划分为搬迁撤并类、城郊融合类和集聚提升类(中心村、一般村和基层村)。该研究可重塑乡村发展核心,完善乡村结构,促进资源优化配置,为人口快速流动区乡村聚落重构提供决策依据。