Secondary succession and its effects on soil moisture and nutrition in abandoned old-fields of hilly region of Loess Plateau, China

Floristic composition, community structure and soil moisture and nutrient contents in abandoned fields of different ages were analyzed to clarify the regenerative aspects of succession as a tool for vegetation restoration. The results indicated that secondary succession in this region can be interpreted as an auto-succession: there are main changes in species-relative abundance and species turnover. Annual or biennial species (e.g. Artemisia scoparia), acted as pioneers and strongly dominated the early stages. Then, they underwent a progressive decline, while forbs (e.g. Artemisia sacrorum) and grasses (e.g. Xanthium sibiricum) had their peak abundance at intermediate stages. Dwarf shrubs (e.g. Lespedeza dahurica) and short rhizome grass (e.g. Bothriochloa ischaemum) appeared at mid-succession stage and gradually increased in abundance during succession, becoming dominant at late stages. The first axis of detrended correspondence canonical analysis arranged the sites according to their fallow time, indicating a successional sere. The second axis, associated with diverging pathways of regeneration, correlated with topographic factors and soil moisture and nutrition. Structural divergence between plots increased as succession went on, attained the highest at the mid-succession stage, decreased at the late stage.

Soil moisture and available phosphorus content decreased steadily with field age after their abandonment, whereas pools of organic matter, total and available nitrogen, potassium and total phosphorus increased with field age. The pace and direction of recovery of native vegetation and natural soil properties in these abandoned fields resembled classic old-field succession, which is a form of secondary succession that often serves as a template for guiding restoration efforts. Interface between the abandoned field soil and plant system was crucial to the above process. Our current study supported the generally accepted hypothesis in the succession literature.     

Derivative temporal clustering analysis: detecting prolonged neuronal activity

Temporal clustering analysis (TCA) and independent component analysis (ICA) are promising data-driven techniques in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments to obtain brain activation maps in conditions with unknown temporal information regarding the neuronal activity. Although comparable to ICA in detecting transient neuronal activities, TCA fails to detect prolonged plateau brain activations. To eliminate this pitfall, a novel derivative TCA (DTCA) method was introduced and its algorithms with different subtraction intervals were tested on simulated data with a pattern of prolonged plateau brain activation. It was found that the best performance of DTCA method in generating functional maps could be obtained if the subtraction interval is equal to or larger than the length of the rising time of the fMRI response. The DTCA method and its theoretical predication were further investigated and validated using in vivo fMRI data sets. By removing the limitations in the previous TCA, DTCA has shown its powerful capability in detecting prolonged plateau neuronal activities.     

The affine Plateau problem

In this paper, we study a second order variational problem for locally convex hypersurfaces, which is the affine invariant analogue of the classical Plateau problem for minimal surfaces. We prove existence, regularity and uniqueness results for hypersurfaces maximizing affine area under appropriate boundary conditions.

     

Simple ingredients leading to very efficient heuristics for the maximum clique problem

Starting from an algorithm recently proposed by Pullan and Hoos, we formulate and analyze iterated local search algorithms for the maximum clique problem. The basic components of such algorithms are a fast neighbourhood search (not based on node evaluation but on completely random selection) and simple, yet very effective, diversification techniques and restart rules. A detailed computational study is performed in order to identify strengths and weaknesses of the proposed algorithms and the role of the different components on several classes of instances. The tested algorithms are very fast and reliable: most of the DIMACS benchmark instances are solved within very short CPU times. For one of the hardest tests, a new putative optimum was discovered by one of our algorithms. Very good performances were also shown on recently proposed and more difficult instances. It is important to remark that the heuristics tested in this paper are basically parameter free (the appropriate value for the unique parameter is easily identified and was, in fact, the same value for all problem instances used in this paper).     

青藏高原不同半径热融湖下融区发展差异的非线性分析

以青藏高原北麓河地区的气象资料、热融湖信息和冻土监测数据为基础,以柱坐标系下伴有相变的热传导方程为模型,在假设不同半径热融湖湖底温度和湖水深度相同条件下,模拟了不同半径热融湖对湖下多年冻土热状况和融区发展长期影响的差异.计算结果表明,不同半径热融湖湖下土壤热状况和融区发展都有较大差异,精确模拟热融湖下土壤热状况和融区发展的数学模型必须考虑热融滑塌引起的热融湖横向扩展作用.     

PALEOMONSOONS OF CHINA OVER THE LAST 130,000 YEARS——PALEOMONSOON VARIATION

Based upon the effect of land-sea interaction on the paleomonsoon variation and the time series of climatic proxy-indicators, the historical Asian monsoon variation over the last 130,000 and 18,000 years has been reconstructed with an emphasis on the basic characteristics of summer monsoon circulation. The monsoon-climatic cycles and associated model of environmental development over the central and eastern China are proposed and the mechanism of paleomonsoon variation of China preliminarily discussed. The variation of East Asian monsoon circulation should be regarded as a regional result of both solar-radiation changes and the global glacial-interglacial cycles. The episodic uplifting of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau since the late Miocene has to a large extent controlled the forming and evolution of the paleomonsoon circulation of China.     

中国活动构造与环境灾害研究中的若干重大问题

活动构造与环境灾害是密切相关的。活动构造可以直接引起地质灾害,构造活动引发的地震又可以派生出一系列地质灾害,人类不恰当的工程活动还可以恶化地质构造环境而加剧地质灾害。在活动构造与环境灾害相关性研究方面,我国急待启动四大科学问题的研究工作:基于现代大陆动力学的中国大陆区域地壳稳定性分区评价研究;青藏高原隆升与地质灾害;活动断裂的工程危害及其防治;地质灾害的内外动力耦合成因机理。     

基于野外可见近红外光谱和水分影响校正算法的土壤剖面有机碳预测

土壤是陆地碳循环的中枢,充分发挥土壤固碳潜力有助于减缓全球气候变化。土壤有机碳 (SOC) 的高度分异性同时体现在空间和垂直分布上,但是许多前期研究往往只考虑了空间分异,而忽略了垂直分异。尤其在青藏高原这种高寒山区,土壤样品采集难度较大且费用昂贵。可见近红外 (Vis-NIR) 光谱作为传统土壤实验室化学分析的辅助手段,能够较为快速和精准地估测SOC含量。但是土壤水分等环境因素会掩盖或改变SOC的Vis-NIR光谱吸收特征进而削弱模型预测精度。外部参数正交化 (EPO) 和分段直接标准化 (PDS) 算法可以有效校正水分对光谱的影响,但其在野外新鲜土柱上的表现还不得而知。本研究旨在探索不同水分影响校正算法对野外剖面土壤光谱的校正能力,对采自中国青藏高原海拔2 900～4 500 m色季拉山的共26个1 m深土柱。沿深度以5 cm×5 cm为测量单元,从各单元中心采集共计386个野外原状湿样Vis-NIR光谱,并在实验室内测得相应386个研磨干样的Vis-NIR光谱以及SOC含量。经EPO和PDS算法校正土壤水分对光谱的影响后,通过随机森林建立土壤光谱和SOC含量的定量预测模型,并使用靴襻法评估不同校正处理下预测模型的不确定。土柱整体及垂直分布的精度结果表明,经PDS法转换的农田和草地土柱湿样光谱均表现出良好的水分校正效果,而EPO法仅对农田土柱有效。水分影响校正算法在不同土壤深度上也存在显著差异,EPO和PDS对农田和草地表层样本的水分校正均效果明显。两种校正方法的效果显示出地类和土层深度的依赖性。本研究为利用Vis-NIR光谱技术在高寒山区野外快速准确估算土壤碳含量的垂直分异提供了必要参考。     

使用多色合成激光场拓展高次谐波谱平台区域的宽度

本文提出了一种多色合成激光方案用来有效的提高高次谐波谱平台区域的宽度. 我们首先通过在800nm基本激光脉冲上添加一束或者两束控制激光脉冲在理论上得到双色以及三色合成激光场;其次,通过求解一维含时薛定谔方程,计算得到了在多色合成激光场条件下的高次谐波谱,计算结果表明,多色合成激光场方案可以有效的拓展高次谐波谱的平台区域;最后,我们结合电子的经典回碰动能分布以及时频分布,分析了在多色场条件下高次谐波谱平台区域拓宽的机理和微观机制.     

Fission-track dating of Macusanite glasses with plateau and size correction methods

Two Macusanite pebbles (MB1 and MB2) were dated with the fission-track method. Six irradiations were carried out in different nuclear reactors: Pavia (Italy), IPEN-CNEN (Brazil) and IPEN-Lima (Peru). Measurements of the thorium and uranium induced-fission per target nucleus using natural thorium thin films and natural U-doped glasses calibrated against natural uranium thin films, together with a λ_F of 8.46×10⁻¹⁷ a⁻¹ were used to determine the ages. The apparent ages were corrected using the plateau and size correction methods. Track measurements were performed by different analysts, using different counting criteria. In addition, tracks were measured on samples which had been submitted to thermal treatment as well as on samples which had not been heated. Thermal treatments were carried out to erase the fossil tracks before neutron irradiation. No significant differences have been found in individual results, using the two Macusanite pebbles and the different nuclear reactors, age correction techniques, analysts, track-counting criteria, and thermal treatments before neutron irradiation. The great majority of the results (14/17) is compatible with the Ar–Ar ages of 5.12±0.11 and 5.10±0.11 Ma, Macusanite MB1 and MB2, respectively. However, the fission-track ages are systematically less (8%) than the Ar–Ar ages of the two Macusanite samples studied.