The comparisons among 126 14C dates of Carex samples including separated leaf and root parts with acid (A)-treatment and acid-base-acid (ABA)-treatment, and 48 published 14C dates of bulk peat plants on a 92-cm core from Jinchuan Mire in NE China, indicate old carbon influence (OCI) on the 14C dates. The OCI varies with plant species, pretreatment and peat depth. In vascular peat plants such as Carex, humin fractions (remains after ABA treatment) and humic acids are representative of the original plant precursor, while fulvic acids are regarded as the secondary mobile product which should be removed for 14C dating. ABA- treatment removes both fulvic acids and humic acids, whereas A-treatment gets rid of only fulvic acids. Carex roots uptake more dissolved CO2 in peat water. Carex leaves may use more CO2 (involving degassing CO2) above the peat surface. By removing humic acids throughout ABA treatment, the OCI may vary differently over depth (time). ABA treatment cannot eliminate the fixed OCI in humin fractions of vascular peat plants, instead, this treatment may enhance OCI by removing humic acid which may represent the true age of the plants. In addition, Bacon model results on this core could not show rapid changes in accumulation rate.

Drillholes on shells provide a useful way to investigate prey and predator relationships. The current study documents predator–prey interactions exemplified by a faunal assemblage of the fossil gastropod Turritella cingulifera from the Pleistocene Szekou Formation in Hengchun Peninsula, Taiwan. All recognisable skeletal and shell fragments that are larger than 3 mm in size were collected and recorded. Processed bulk sediments (5.24 kg) contained 1462 molluscan shells, including 824 specimens of T. cingulifera, and 27 non-molluscan invertebrates. In the current study, approximately 41.6% (609/1462) of molluscs are drilled with at least one hole. Drilling intensities (DIs) regardless of shell completeness in all gastropods, bivalves and the turritelline gastropod T. cingulifera are 0.546, 0.060 and 0.413, respectively. DI on turritellids is significantly lower than that on other gastropods (χ2= 21.039, P < 0.001). Furthermore, the percentage of drillholes that occur in multiply drilled specimens is 34.7% (95/275) for turritelline gastropods based on complete to nearly complete specimens (n = 588). Our study shows no significant preference of drillhole position either on the suture or on the whorl (χ2= 0.055, P = 0.814). Most drillholes are located in whorls two to four proximal to the aperture. Drillhole diameters of the shells with one drillhole and ones with multiple drillholes are 1.0 and 0.5 mm on average, and the results of Mann–Whitney tests indicate that they are significantly different (P < 0.001). The first turritelline gastropod shell with an incomplete drillhole from Taiwan is documented here. The dominant drilling predators were naticids based on the drillhole morphology and the presence of naticids in the same assemblage. No apparent prey size selectivity is observed, so a ‘size refugium’ does not exist for the turritellids in the current study.

Human fatigue is a major risk factor in transportation that contributes, directly or indirectly, to a large number of traffic accidents. Though many studies have investigated fatigue-inducing factors in transportation to manage human fatigue more efficiently, there are limited studies related to vessel traffic service (VTS). To fill this gap, this work aims to determine the key causal factors and symptoms of human fatigue with a focus on VTS operations. Achieving this aim is hindered by the problems of no standard definition of task-related fatigue and limited data sources. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a novel definition of task-related human fatigue, a task-driven approach for identifying causal factors and a causal network-based approach for selecting key causal factors. Twelve key causal factors of human fatigue in VTS were identified and analysed. In addition, it was found that VTS operators suffered from multidimensional fatigue, especially physical fatigue. The results provide a foundation and future directions for designing interventions to manage human fatigue.

Seed protein content is one of the most important traits controlled by quantitative trait loci (QTLs) in soybean. In this study, a Glycine soja accession (ZYD2738) was crossed with two elite cultivars Jidou 12 and Jidou 9 separately and subsequently the resulting F2:3 populations were used to identify QTLs associated with seed protein content. Protein contents in either population appeared to have a normal distribution with transgressive segregation. A total of five QTLs associated with high protein content were identified and mapped to chromosomes 2, 6, 13, 18 and 20, respectively. Of these QTLs, three (qPRO_2_1, qPRO_13_1 and qPRO_20_1) were identified in the same region in both the populations, whereas the other two (qPRO_6_1 and qPRO_18_1) were mapped in two different regions. qPRO_2_1 appears to be a novel protein QTL. qPRO_6_1, qPRO_18_1 and qPRO_20_1 had additive effects on seed protein content, while qPRO_13_1 had an over-dominant effect on seed protein content. These QTLs and their linked markers could serve as effective tools for marker-assisted selection to increase seed protein content.

The surface morphologies of AlGaN/AlN/GaN HEMT structures were examined by using the atomic force microscopy (AFM).These HEMT structures have been grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) onto the sapphire (0001) substrates where the thicknesses of AlN interlayers were varied from 0 to 5 nm. After the growth of GaN buffer layer, the AlN intermediate and AlGaN top layers were subsequently deposited at 1130°C in an trimethylaluminum (TMAl) and ammonia (NH3) atmosphere. The surface of AlGaN layers shows the thick- and fine-thread patterns.

It was found that the root-mean-square (RMS) roughness of the samples with 0, 0.5, 2.5 and 5nm AlN interlayer thickness are 0.503, 0.534, 0.534 and 0.601nm, respectively. Although the cracks and rougher surfaces show that the qualities of AlGaN barrier layers have slightly degraded in the samples with thicker AlN layer. These phenomena could be attributed to the lattice mismatch and the growth temperature. In addition, the room-temperature two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) mobility and density analysis were performed on the AlGaN surfaces and the measured results were discussed in detail.

We report high-precision measurements of the Nusselt number as a function of the Rayleigh number in water-filled rectangular Rayleigh–Bénard convection cells. The horizontal length and width of the cells are 50.0 and 15.0 cm, respectively, and the heights , 25.0, 12.5, 6.9, 3.5, and 2.4 cm, corresponding to the aspect ratios , , , , , and . The measurements were carried out over the Rayleigh number range and the Prandtl number range . Our results show that for rectangular geometry turbulent heat transport is independent of the cells’ aspect ratios and hence is insensitive to the nature and structures of the large-scale mean flows of the system. This is slightly different from the observations in cylindrical cells where is found to be in general a decreasing function of , at least for and larger. Such a difference is probably a manifestation of the finite plate conductivity effect. Corrections for the influence of the finite conductivity of the top and bottom plates are made to obtain the estimates of for plates with perfect conductivity. The local scaling exponents of are calculated and found to increase from 0.243 at to 0.327 at .

The phase evolution, nucleation, and sintered ceramics of barium titanate (BaTiO3, BT) powder prepared by solid-state synthesis with an ultrafine starting material (27 m2/g of BaCO3 and 190 m2/g of TiO2) were investigated in this study. Surface diffusion between BaCO3 and TiO2 was observed at a relatively low temperature of 400 °C by transmission electron microscopy. Rapid nucleation of the BT and cubic BT phases was observed at 500 °C by x-ray diffraction. The derivative thermogravimetry curve clearly shows a single step of BT formation at 600 °C. In short, pure BT particles with an average particle size of 250 nm and high tetragonality were prepared by solid-state synthesis, which produced X7R ceramics with high dielectric permittivity, high insulation resistance, and a clear core–shell structure.

Boron-doped, single (∼54 nm) or double (∼21 + 54 nm) Si1−xGex layers were epitaxially grown on 300-mm-diameter p−-Si(100) device wafers with 20 nm technology node design features, by ultrahigh vacuum chemical vapor deposition. The Si1−xGex/Si wafers were annealed in the temperature range of 950–1050 °C for 60 s to investigate the effect of annealing on possible changes of Ge content and Si stress near the Si1−xGex/Si interface. High spectral resolution, micro-Raman spectroscopy was used as a nondestructive characterization technique with five excitation wavelengths of 363.8, 441.6, 457.9, 488.0, and 514.5 nm. Ge diffusion and generation of compressive stress at the Si1−xGex/Si interface were measured on all annealed wafers. Ge diffusion and the accumulation of compressive Si stress after annealing showed significantly different behaviors between single- and double-layer Si1−xGex/Si wafers. Raman characterization results were compared with secondary ion mass spectroscopy and high-resolution x-ray diffraction results.

We report that the high crystalline and high efficiency green emission semipolar {101̅1} InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) grown on the {101̅1} facets of GaN nanopyramid arrays by selective area epitaxy. Clear and sharp interfaces of the semipolar {101̅1} InGaN/GaN MQWs was observed by transmission electron microscopy images. As comparing with (0001) MQWs, the internal electric field of {101̅1} MQWs was remarkably reduced from 1.7 MV/cm to 0.5 MV/cm, and the room temperature (RT) internal quantum efficiency (IQE) at green emission was enhanced by about 80%. This greatly enhancement of IQE is due to suppress the polarization effect in the {101̅1} MQWs which shorten the radiative recombination to compete with nonradiative recombination at RT. These results evince that the {101̅1} planes are promising for solving the efficiency green gap of III-nitride light emitters.

In this paper, we report on a method for fabricating an inexpensive microfluidic platform on parchment paper. Parchment paper was selected for this purpose due to its wide availability for culinary applications and hydrophobic silicone-based surface coating. We were able to selectively modify the surface structure and property (hydrophobic to hydrophilic) using a CO2 laser. The modified surface has highly-porous structure which helps to trap chemical and biological reagents for analysis. The treated surface is stable over time and can be used for aqueous droplet assembly. Finally, we demonstrated the applicability of this platform for performing chemical reaction using luminol-based hemoglobin detection.

BalB/C neonate mice and adult BalB/C mice were vaccinated using BCG (Bacille Calmette–Guerin). The pathogenic growth characteristics of BCG in in vitro culture on spleen cells (SPC) were observed and changes in induced expression of IFN (interferon)-γ and IL (interleukin)-4 in SPC were detected using the ELISPOT assay. The results showed that a low dose of BCG (2×103 cfu) exerted 100% immunoprotection on 7-day-old neonate mice and a high dose of BCG (4×104 cfu) exerted 75% immunoprotection. A low dose of BCG (2×103 cfu) exerted 67% immunoprotection on 35-day-old mice. It is also shown that Th1-type cell immunity dominated by IFN-γ was enhanced significantly in the neonate mice injected with a low dose of BCG (2×103 cfu), and Th2-type cell immunity dominated by IL-4 was depressed at the same time. IFN-γ and IL-4 induced by a high dosage of BCG (4×104 cfu) in neonate mice were both increased. IFN-γ and IL-4 induced by a low dose of BCG (2×103 cfu) in 35-day-old mice were also increased. The results indicate that there exists a marked correlation between immunoprotection by BCG in mice and both the immunizing dose and age of the immune animals, which might be relevant to the changes induced by BCG on Th1- and Th2-type cell immunity.

Early studies have shown that some mouse cumulus–oocyte complexes (COCs) stored at room temperature for 24 h still retained full developmental potential. In this study, we stored denuded mouse oocytes (DOs) at room temperature (25 °C) for 24 h and activated these oocytes with 10 mM SrCl2 or fertilized the oocytes by IVF. We found that nearly half of the DOs stored at room temperature for 1 day can be fertilized normally by IVF and that two foster mothers gave birth to seven pups. Embryos from stored oocytes were cultured in CZB medium with or without 1 μg/ml 17β-estradiol (E2). The numbers of embryo that developed to morula/blastocyst stage after parthenogenetic activation and IVF were significantly increased when E2 was added to the culture (p < 0.05). These results suggest that E2 might improve mouse embryo development in vitro. The birth of seven agouti pups and their healthy growth indicated that the storage of DOs at room temperature for 1 day may be a practical procedure for mammalian reproduction.

We investigated a cluster of postoperative febrile episodes and episodes of Acinetobacter baumannii bacteremia in obstetrics and gynecology wards after an electrical blackout and loss of the water supply. The use of patient-controlled analgesia was the only independent risk factor associated with postoperative fever, and A. baumannii isolates recovered from the blood of patients who had received patient-controlled analgesia were genetically related to an isolate recovered from the diluted morphine solution used for this procedure. After inappropriate preparation of the morphine solution was identified and stopped, the outbreak ended.