The continental shelf strata provide information regarding sea-level fluctuation and climate changes in the Quaternary period. A 5831.47-km-long high-resolution seismic profile and borehole core (YS01) were acquired to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the strata in South Yellow Sea (SYS) during the late Pleistocene. The strata recorded three transgression events (HI, HII, and HIII) and three stages of paleochannel development (LI, LII, and LIII). Based on the distribution, thickness, and volume of the strata formed in the three transgressions, we concluded that the scale of the three transgressions during the late Pleistocene was HIII, HI, and HII, in descending order. In addition, our data show that the Yellow River extended to the Yellow Sea Trough during the last glacial maximum. The influence of the tectonic framework on sedimentation in the SYS was completely concealed by sea-level changes and sediment supply in the late Pleistocene (~Marine Isotope Stage 5). Since then, the accommodation space, a crucial prerequisite for sedimentation, has been controlled solely by sea-level changes in the SYS. Furthermore, two “source to sink” models of the neritic shelf in the marine and terrestrial environments were established, including high sea-level and shelf-exposure models.

South-East Asia’s bird trade is of global conservation concern as it has massively depleted wild populations of many species. Parrots (Order Psittaciformes) are especially vulnerable because they are the most heavily traded group of birds globally under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) appendices. Singapore’s involvement in the global pet bird trade as a transhipment hub is well documented, particularly for parrots. Yet, much less is known about the links between its domestic and international trade. We attempt to quantify this relationship by comparing bird trade data on the CITES database with past market surveys of pet shops, complemented with semi-structured interviews with 30 parrot owners in Singapore. We report a decline in total imports and exports of CITES-listed birds in Singapore from 2005 to 2016, consistent with global trends after the European Union trade ban on wild bird imports. However, parrots continue to make up the majority of total imports; and there was a yearly increase in the percentage of parrot imports out of total imports. In addition, we report a difference in imports and exports of 54,207 CITES I, II and III listed birds into Singapore i.e. birds imported but not re-exported. A substantial proportion of these birds were possibly channelled into the domestic pet trade or used as breeding stock. Interviews with parrot owners confirmed the growing demand and popularity of parrots and particularly of larger species. We conclude that the domestic demand for parrots may have been previously underestimated, and make recommendations to manage Singapore’s international and domestic pet bird trade such as implementing a licensing and records system to track the movement of birds.

Precise Point Positioning/Inertial Navigation System (PPP/INS) integrated navigation based on PPP and low-accuracy INS is often used to provide position and attitude information for vehicle-mounted or airborne mobile mapping systems. With proper processing, the position accuracy of PPP/INS is comparable to that of Differential Global Navigation Satellite System (DGNSS)/INS, but the accuracy of the attitude, especially the yaw angle, cannot be guaranteed. However, the yaw angle is crucial for mobile mapping systems. To compensate for the insufficiency of PPP/INS, we have designed a Multi-Antenna GNSS (MAGNSS)/INS integrated navigation system. First, the attitude determination method using MAGNSS is presented in detail. Then, the MAGNSS attitude is combined with the PPP position and velocity as measurements for integration with the INS. Thus, PPP/INS integrated navigation was improved to MAGNSS/INS integrated navigation. Finally, a three-hour car-borne test was conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The results indicate that the attitude determined from MAGNSS is accurate and stable over time. Compared to PPP/INS, MAGNSS/INS integrated navigation can improve the attitude accuracy significantly because of the inclusion of MAGNSS attitude.

Thermal and hydrological dynamics and their impacts on the stability of a moraine dam were analyzed and simulated for the Longbasaba Lake in the Himalaya, based on soil temperature, moisture and heat flux data observed at different depths in the dam from 2012 to 2016. Annual average heat income is greater than heat expenditure on the dam surface. The mean annual temperature at observed the depths of 0–150 cm is >0°C, although the average annual air temperature was −3.6°C over the dam, indicating a relatively larger temperature difference between moraine dam and air. The volumetric soil moisture content is relatively low with an annual average of 5%, peaking after the snow cover melting and active layer thawing. Simulation results indicate that the average yearly maximum thawing depth has been ~0.3 m deeper than the average yearly maximum freezing depth during the observation period. In the past 55 years, the yearly maximum thawing depth has increased, while yearly maximum freezing depth has decreased, implying that the permafrost in the dam has been deteriorating. The annual surplus heat and increasing permafrost thawing depth will result in further deterioration of permafrost and melting of buried ice in the dam, thereby decreasing its stability.

In this paper, we prove that the singular integral defined by

${{T}_{\Omega ,a}}f(x)=\text{p}\text{.}\text{v}\text{.}{{\int }_{{{\mathbb{R}}^{d}}}}\frac{\Omega (x-y)}{|x-y{{|}^{d}}}\cdot {{m}_{x,y}}a\cdot f(y)dy$ is bounded on ${{L}^{p}}({{\mathbb{R}}^{d}})$ for $1\,<\,p\,<\,\infty $ and is of weak type (1,1), where $\Omega \,\in L\text{lo}{{\text{g}}^{+}}L({{S}^{d-1}})$ and ${{m}_{x,y}}a\,=:\,\int{_{0}^{1}}\,a(sx\,+\,(1\,-\,s)y)ds$ , with $a\,\in \,{{L}^{\infty }}({{\mathbb{R}}^{d}})\,$ satisfying some restricted conditions.

The present research focuses on glacier changes in the southeast of the Qinghai–Xizang (Tibetan) Plateau, where most of the temperate glaciers in China are located. Our results show that the 102 measured glaciers in the region have all retreated between 1915 and 1980, with total area and volume decreases of 47.9 km2 and 6.95 km3, respectively. The extrapolated mass loss of all glaciers in the Gangrigabu mountains amounted to 27 km3, 9.8% of the ice mass in 1915. Between 1980 and 2001, glaciers in the region have also experienced a general retreat; however, up to 40% of the glaciers were advancing. Our analysis demonstrates that precipitation in the studied area has increased substantially since the mid-1980s. This precipitation increase is likely to bring about a positive mass balance for glaciers in the region, so that the retreat of retreating glaciers might slow down or even turn into advance. Considering the sensitivity of the temperate glaciers in the region and the uncertainty in climate projections, more attention must be paid to glacier changes in the southeast Tibetan Plateau region.

Glaciers in the Muztag Ata and Konggur mountains of the eastern Pamir plateau, northwestern China, have been monitored by applying aerial photo stereo models (1962/66) and Landsat TM (1990) and ETM+ (1999) images, all of which have been compared in order to detect areal and frontal changes through the past four decades. The mean frontal retreat of glaciers in the Muztag Ata and Konggur mountains increased from 6.0 ma−1 between 1962/66 and 1990 to 11.2ma−1 between 1990 and 1999, with an overall glacier length reduction of 9.9% for the whole study period. The glacier area has decreased by 7.9%, mainly due to changes observed in the most recent period (1990–99), when the annual area loss almost tripled to 1.01 km2 a−1. Based on meteorological data from Taxkogan station since 1957, we conclude that climate change, particularly the rise in summer temperature after 1994, is the main forcing factor in glacier shrinkage.

The degree-day factor (DDF) is an important parameter for the degree-day model, which is a widely used method for ice- and snowmelt computation. Spatial variations of the DDF greatly affect the accuracy of snow- and ice-melt modelling. This study analyzes the spatial variability of DDFs obtained from observed glaciers in different regions of western China. The results clearly show that the DDF for a single glacier is subject to significant small-scale variations, and the factor for maritime glaciers is higher than that for subcontinental and extremely continental glaciers. In western China the factors increase gradually from northwest to southeast. In general, the regional patterns of DDFs are detectable on the glaciers due to the unique climatic environment and heat budget of the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding regions. Low DDFs can be expected for cold-dry areas, whereas high DDFs can be expected for warm-wet areas in western China. Depending on spatial variation of the characteristics of DDFs and the meteorological data, we can provide gridded degree-day models for non-monitored glaciers to reconstruct gridded historical glacier mass-balance series in western China.

Recent studies have indicated that widespread wastage of glaciers in western China has occurred since the late 1970s. By using digitized glacier outlines derived from the 1970 inventory and Landsat satellite data from 1990/91 to 2001, we obtained area changes of about 278 glaciers with a total area of 2711.57 km2 in the heavily glaciated west Kunlun Shan (WKS) in the northern Tibetan Plateau (TP). Results indicate that the prevailing characteristic of glacier variation is ice wastage, and glacier area decreased by 10 km2 (0.4% of the total 1970 area) between 1970 and 2001. Both the south and north slopes of the WKS presented shrinkage during 1970–2001, but whereas on the north slope a slight enlargement of ice extent during 1970–90 was followed by a reduction of 0.2% during 1990–2001, on the south slope the glacier area decreased by 1.2% during 1970–91, with a small increment of 0.6% during 1991–2001. Comparisons with other glaciated mountainous regions in western China show that glaciers in the research area have experienced less retreat. Based on records from the Guliya ice core, we believe that an increase in air temperature was the main forcing factor for glacier shrinkage during 1970–2001.

The Tarim river basin, a river system formed by the convergence of nine tributaries, is the most heavily glacierized watershed in arid northwest China. In the basin, there are 11 665 glaciers with a total area of 19 878 km2 and a volume of 2313 km3. Glaciers in the basin play a significant role in the water resource system. It is estimated that they provide about 133 x 108 m3 of meltwater annually, contributing 39% of the total river runoff. Under the influence of global warming, northwest China has experienced a generally warmer and drier climate since the mid-19th century. However, a so-called ‘warm and wet transition’ has occurred since the late 1980s, evidenced by an increase in both precipitation and stream discharge in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region and neighboring regions. This paper describes how glaciers in the Tarim river basin have responded to such warming and increased precipitation, and the impact of these glacier changes. We analyzed the variations of more than 3000 glaciers since the 1960s using topographical maps, high-resolution satellite images and aerial photographs of the river basin. Our results indicate that glaciers in the basin have been mostly in retreat in the past 40 years, and ice wastage has significantly influenced water resources in the Tarim river basin. Estimation by a degree-day meltwater model shows the positive anomaly in stream runoff of the Tailan river can be partly attributed to the increase in glacier runoff (amounting to one-third of the stream discharge), and a rough estimation using observed average ablation on the termini of 15 glaciers in China verifies that the mass loss calculated by a glacier area-volume relation is reasonable.

A so-called ‘warm and wet transition’ of climate has occurred in the arid part of northwestern China since the late 1980s. A result of this climatic transition is an increase in runoff in Xinjiang and neighboring regions. In a warming and wetting change-of-climate scenario, we attempt to evaluate the impact of glacier meltwater and precipitation on the increase in outlet discharge (runoff) from Keqicar Baqi glacier, southwestern Tien Shan, China. In our research we have applied a degree-day model which is one of the most widely used methods of ice- and snowmelt computations for a multitude of purposes such as hydrological modeling, ice-dynamic modeling and climate sensitivity studies. It is concluded that under the warming and wetting scenario, the primary supply for the runoff in this catchment is glacier meltwater, with precipitation being the dominant secondary source; 84% and 8% of total runoff, respectively.

Glacier runoff from the Yangtze River source region (YRSR), China, is estimated for the period 1961–2000 using a degree-day approach. In the investigation area, glacier runoff accounts for 11.0% of the total river runoff during the period 1961–2000. In the 1990s its contribution to river runoff rises to 17.0%. Due to the current rate of glacier decline, the impact of glacier runoff on river runoff has recently increased in the source region. Based on two different climate-change scenarios derived from ECHAM5/MPI-OM, future glacier runoff is assessed for the period 2001–50. In all climate-change scenarios, annual glacier runoff shows a significant increase due to intensified ice melting. There is an increase in glacier runoff during spring and early summer, yet a significant decrease in late summer. This study highlights the current and future impact of glacier runoff on river runoff in the YRSR.

Meltwater and runoff from Keqicar Baqi glacier, a large glacier in the southwestern Tien Shan, northwestern China, are simulated using a modified degree-day model including potential clear- sky direct solar radiation, coupled with a linear reservoir model for the period 1 July to 12 September 2003. There is good agreement between modelled and measured meltwater at ablation stakes and between simulated and observed runoff at the glacier terminus. A reconstruction of glacier meltwater and runoff from an assumed debris-free surface during the study period shows that the effect of the debris layer on glacier meltwater generation crucially affects glacier runoff. The model is also used to calculate glacier runoff given the climate scenario resulting from a doubling of CO2 as projected by the ReCM2 regional climate model. The projected changes in temperature and precipitation vary from 0 to 2.7°C and from 0 to 25%, respectively. Results indicate that glacier runoff increases linearly with temperature over these ranges whether or not the debris layer is taken into consideration. The effect of change in temperature is much more noticeable than that for change in precipitation. Due to the debris layer predominantly covering (and insulating) the ablation area, the response of glacier runoff is less sensitive to temperature increase with a debris-covered surface than with a debris-free surface. Glacier runoff is also markedly reduced when a reduced glacier area is prescribed in the +2.7°C scenario.

This article outlines the evolution of a rescue team in responding to adenovirus prevention with a deployable field hospital. The local governments mobilized a shelter hospital and a rescue team consisting of 59 members to assist with rescue and response efforts after an epidemic outbreak of adenovirus. We describe and evaluate the challenges of preparing for deployment, field hospital maintenance, treatment mode, and primary treatment methods. The field hospital established at the rescue scene consisted of a medical command vehicle, a computed tomography shelter, an X-ray shelter, a special laboratory shelter, an oxygen and electricity supply vehicle, and epidemic prevention and protection equipment. The rescue team comprised paramedics, physicians, X-ray technicians, respiratory therapists, and logistical personnel. In 22 days, more than 3000 patients with suspected adenovirus infection underwent initial examinations. All patients were properly treated, and no deaths occurred. After emergency measures were implemented, the spread of adenovirus was eventually controlled. An emergency involving infectious diseases in less-developed regions demands the rapid development of a field facility with specialized medical personnel when local hospital facilities are either unavailable or unusable. An appropriate and detailed prearranged action plan is important for infectious diseases prevention. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:109–114)

The globally threatened Straw-headed Bulbul Pycnonotus zeylanicus is one of South-East Asia’s most imperilled songbirds due to the surging demand for the species in the regional bird trade. Recently uplisted from Vulnerable to Endangered, populations of the Straw-headed Bulbul have been extirpated from Java, Thailand and possibly Sumatra while those in Borneo and Peninsular Malaysia are in decline. Intriguingly, a significant yet rarely documented population of this species persists in Singapore. A major stronghold in Singapore is Ubin Island where a population is known since the 1920s. Using a long-term citizen science dataset rarely available for South-East Asian bird species, we determined the status and population trends of the Straw-headed Bulbul in Singapore over a 10–15 year period using Poisson regression models and standardised population indices. We found that the Straw-headed Bulbul population has increased at a rate of 3.69 ± 1.21% per annum on Ubin Island, while the population on Singapore Island remained stable (0.56% per annum) from 2000 to 2016. The population trends in Singapore contrast starkly with the declines reported elsewhere in South-East Asia. We estimated the population in Singapore to be a minimum of 202 individuals, distributed over multiple forest patches. The largest subpopulation of about 110 adult individuals persists on Ubin and which alone forms between 6.5–18.3% of the estimated global population in 2016. Given this unique situation, we recommend a number of conservation measures for the Straw-headed Bulbul to better protect the species, including: (1) an expansion of the protected area network in Singapore to include Ubin as a reserve, (2) the development of an endangered species management plan and, (3) the establishment of ex-situ conservation programmes in zoological institutions and wildlife centres in the region.

Malaria remains one of the most devastating diseases. Cerebral malaria (CM) is a severe complication of Plasmodium falciparum infection resulting in high mortality and morbidity worldwide. Analysis of precise mechanisms of CM in humans is difficult for ethical reasons and animal models of CM have been employed to study malaria pathogenesis. Here, we describe a new experimental cerebral malaria (ECM) model with Plasmodium berghei ANKA infection in KunMing (KM) mice. KM mice developed ECM after blood-stage or sporozoites infection, and the development of ECM in KM mice has a dose-dependent relationship with sporozoites inoculums. Histopathological findings revealed important features associated with ECM, including accumulation of mononuclear cells and red blood cells in brain microvascular, and brain parenchymal haemorrhages. Blood–brain barrier (BBB) examination showed that BBB disruption was present in infected KM mice when displaying clinical signs of CM. In vivo bioluminescent imaging experiment indicated that parasitized red blood cells accumulated in most vital organs including heart, lung, spleen, kidney, liver and brain. The levels of inflammatory cytokines interferon-gamma, tumour necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin (IL)-17, IL-12, IL-6 and IL-10 were all remarkably increased in KM mice infected with P. berghei ANKA. This study indicates that P. berghei ANKA infection in KM mice can be used as ECM model to extend further research on genetic, pharmacological and vaccine studies of CM.

Disaster can strike people in any community at any time anywhere in the world. Disasters occur with high frequency, take on multiple forms, and exert wide influence, typically causing property damage, injuries, and death. As the world’s largest developing country, China incurs great costs when a disaster hits. After the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, the Chinese government focused its attention on the construction of an emergency response system, the creation of disaster prevention and mitigation systems, and the development of a disaster medicine program. Here, we describe the current status of disaster medicine in China, focusing on the following four aspects: the Emergency Management System, Education & Training, Rescue Practices, and Research. We also discuss the future of disaster medicine in China. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:157–165)

Let $H=-\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E5}+V$ be a Schrödinger operator with some general signed potential $V$ . This paper is mainly devoted to establishing the $L^{q}$ -boundedness of the Riesz transform $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FB}H^{-1/2}$ for $q>2$ . We mainly prove that under certain conditions on $V$ , the Riesz transform $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FB}H^{-1/2}$ is bounded on $L^{q}$ for all $q\in [2,p_{0})$ with a given $2<p_{0}<n$ . As an application, the main result can be applied to the operator $H=-\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E5}+V_{+}-V_{-}$ , where $V_{+}$ belongs to the reverse Hölder class $B_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}}$ and $V_{-}\in L^{n/2,\infty }$ with a small norm. In particular, if $V_{-}=-\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}|x|^{-2}$ for some positive number $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}$ , $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FB}H^{-1/2}$ is bounded on $L^{q}$ for all $q\in [2,n/2)$ and $n>4$ .