Grating-based X-ray imaging can make use of conventional tube sources to provide absorption, refraction and scattering contrast images from a single set of projection images efficiently. In this paper, a fresh cherry ...Grating-based X-ray imaging can make use of conventional tube sources to provide absorption, refraction and scattering contrast images from a single set of projection images efficiently. In this paper, a fresh cherry tomato and a dried umeboshi are imaged by using X-ray Talbot–Lau interferometer. The seed distribution in the scattering image of the cherry tomato, and the wrinkles of epicarp in the refraction image of the umeboshi, are shown distinctly. The refraction and scattering images provide more information on subtle features than the absorption image. Also, the contrast-to-noise ratio values show distinguishing capacity of the three kinds of imaging techniques. The results confirm that grating-based X-ray imaging is of great potential in non-destructive fruit testing.展开更多
The aim of this study is to establish the prevailing conditions of changing climatic trends and change point dates in four selected meteorological stations of Uyo, Benin, Port Harcourt, and Warri in the Niger Delta re...The aim of this study is to establish the prevailing conditions of changing climatic trends and change point dates in four selected meteorological stations of Uyo, Benin, Port Harcourt, and Warri in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Using daily or 24-hourly annual maximum series (AMS) data with the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and the modified Chowdury Indian Meteorological Department (MCIMD) models were adopted to downscale the time series data. Mann-Kendall (MK) trend and Sen’s Slope Estimator (SSE) test showed a statistically significant trend for Uyo and Benin, while Port Harcourt and Warri showed mild trends. The Sen’s Slope magnitude and variation rate were 21.6, 10.8, 6.00 and 4.4 mm/decade, respectively. The trend change-point analysis showed the initial rainfall change-point dates as 2002, 2005, 1988, and 2000 for Uyo, Benin, Port Harcourt, and Warri, respectively. These prove positive changing climatic conditions for rainfall in the study area. Erosion and flood control facilities analysis and design in the Niger Delta will require the application of Non-stationary IDF modelling.展开更多
Global climate change promotes the energy system reform. Achieving a high proportion of renewable energy becomes the major countries' energy strategy. As proposed in its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution...Global climate change promotes the energy system reform. Achieving a high proportion of renewable energy becomes the major countries' energy strategy. As proposed in its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions(INDC), China intends to raise the proportion of non-fossil energy in primary energy consumption to about 20% by 2030. That ambitious goal means the non-fossil energy supplies by 2030 will be 7-8 times that of 2005, and the annual increase rate is more than 8% within the 25 years. Besides, the capacity of wind power, solar power, hydropower and nuclear power reaches 400 GW, 350 GW, 450 GW, and 150 GW respectively, and China's non-fossil power capacity is even greater than the U.S.'s total power capacity. In addition, the scale of natural gas increases. Consequently, by 2030, the proportion of coal falls from the current 70% to below 50%, and the CO_2 intensity of energy consumption decreases by 20% compared with the level of 2005, which play important roles in significantly reducing the CO_2 intensity of GDP. Since China has confirmed to achieve the CO_2 emissions peak around 2030,at that time, the newly added energy demand will be satisfied by non-fossil energy, and the consumption of fossil fuel will stop growing. By2030, non-fossil energy accounts for 20%, and the large scale and sound momentum of new and renewable energy industry will support the growth of total energy demand, which plays a key role in CO_2 emissions peaking and beginning to decline, and lays the foundation for establishing a new energy system dominated by new and renewable energy in the second half of the 21 st century as well as finally achieving the CO2zero-emission.展开更多
Date palm tree(Phoenix dactylifera L.)is an important crop,which is cultivated in many countries extending from North Africa to the Middle East,including many of the GCC(Gulf Cooperation Council)Countries(Allaith,2008...Date palm tree(Phoenix dactylifera L.)is an important crop,which is cultivated in many countries extending from North Africa to the Middle East,including many of the GCC(Gulf Cooperation Council)Countries(Allaith,2008).Date palm trees have been growing for the last 5,000 years in harshest climatic condition and their fruits have been an excellent展开更多
Natural hazards such as hurricanes may cause extensive economic losses and social disruption for civil structures and infrastructures in coastal areas, implying the importance of understanding the construction perform...Natural hazards such as hurricanes may cause extensive economic losses and social disruption for civil structures and infrastructures in coastal areas, implying the importance of understanding the construction performance subjected to hurricanes and assessing the hurricane damages properly. The intensity and frequency of hurricanes have been reported to change with time due to the potential impact of climate change.In this paper, a probability-based model of hurricane damage assessment for coastal constructions is proposed taking into account the non-stationarity in hurricane intensity and frequency. The nonhomogeneous Poisson process is employed to model the non-stationarity in hurricane occurrence while the non-stationarity in hurricane intensity is reflected by the time-variant statistical parameters(e.g., mean value and/or standard deviation), with which the mean value and variation of the cumulative hurricane damage are evaluated explicitly. The Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA, is chosen to illustrate the hurricane damage assessment method proposed in this paper. The role of non-stationarity in hurricane intensity and occurrence rate due to climate change in hurricane damage is investigated using some representative changing patterns of hurricane parameters.展开更多
Haden, Kent, Palmer, and Keitt mango varieties were studied to establish the relationship of harvest time to 1) seasonal accumulated day-degrees or heat units (<span style="white-space:nowrap;">...Haden, Kent, Palmer, and Keitt mango varieties were studied to establish the relationship of harvest time to 1) seasonal accumulated day-degrees or heat units (<span style="white-space:nowrap;">˚</span>C), 2) daily rainfall amount (mm), and 3) physical fruit development attributes in order to fix maturity standards for export and local markets. Randomized Complete Block Design with four replications was used. In each case of Haden, Kent, Palmer, and Keitt varieties, physical fruit development attributes established as standard harvest maturity values were: weight (640 g, 836 g, 837 g, and 1104 g, respectively), length (16.31 cm, 16.19 cm, 21.22 cm, and 19 cm, respectively), width (30.97 cm, 33.47 cm, 30.86 cm, and 35.91 cm, respectively), volume (598 cm<sup>3</sup>, 807 cm<sup>3</sup>, 772 cm<sup>3</sup>, and 959 cm<sup>3</sup>, respectively), density (1.147 g/cm<sup>3</sup>, 1.076 g/cm<sup>3</sup>, 1.084 g/cm<sup>3</sup>, and 1.189 g/cm<sup>3</sup>, respectively), and indentation (0.25 cm, 0.49 cm, and 0.50 cm, respectively). The intensity of grooves around the stylar-scar end of Palmer fruits was studied and used as maturity index. Index values of 0.075 mls, 0.150 mls, 0.425 mls, and 0.116 mls, respectively, for Haden, Kent, Palmer, and Keitt varieties were recorded as latex exuded at harvest since these values tallied with the other physical harvest maturity index values, and also with those of rain fall and temperature values. Temperature, rainfall, and physical characteristics are therefore important non-destructive criteria for fixing maturity index values for mango fruits.展开更多
Chili pepper (Capsicum spp.) fruit color is an important agronomical trait. It has been known that a large deletion in the 5' upstream region of the Ccs gene generates non-red fruit color in pepper, but the accura...Chili pepper (Capsicum spp.) fruit color is an important agronomical trait. It has been known that a large deletion in the 5' upstream region of the Ccs gene generates non-red fruit color in pepper, but the accurate size and position of the deletion and whether all the non-red cultivars had the same large deletion or not were unclarified. In this study, to identify the Ccs upstream large deletion, we carried out diagnostic PCR using six forward primers at 300 - 900 bp intervals in the 5' untranslated region of Ccs with a fixed reverse primer for a yellow fruit pepper “Sonia Gold”. Then it was revealed that 4430 bp from -3234 bp position in upstream region to 1196 bp position in exon was deleted in Ccs of “Sonia Gold”. The allele having this deletion was named ccs-del. Probably this allele is substantially the same as ccs-p1 having 4879 bp deletion reported previously. Based on the sequence determined, we developed a PCR marker to distinguish ccs-del. Genotyping of 16 cultivars of C. annuum showed that 14 had ccs-del and the remaining two had another mutant allele ccs-3. This result indicates that ccs-del is the most common allele and widely shared in non-red fruit cultivars in C. annuum. Genotyping of 16 cultivars of C. chinense clarified that one cultivar each possessed ccs-del and ccs-3. These results indicate that major alleles responsible for non-red fruit color in C. annuum were shared across species throughout interspecific introgression.展开更多
<span style="font-family:Verdana;">The growing interest of consumers in using foods that improve health has motivated researchers and the food industry to develop new functional products such as foods ...<span style="font-family:Verdana;">The growing interest of consumers in using foods that improve health has motivated researchers and the food industry to develop new functional products such as foods with probiotics. Probiotic cultures, for example, from lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria have been highlighted for their ability to promote balance in the intestinal microbiota as well as other benefits such as anticarcinogenic and antimutagenic effects, reduced plasma cholesterol levels, decreased symptoms of lactose intolerance, and stimulation of the immune </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">response. Traditionally, probiotics are incorporated into dairy products.</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> However, because of the growing number of individuals affected by lactose into</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">lerance and/or vegans, other food matrices have been studied as potential</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> car</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">riers for these microorganisms. Considering all the facts mentioned above, cereals, legumes, fruits, and vegetables could be potential substrates, where</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> probiotic bacteria can be used for the development of non-dairy beverages. This review aimed to highlight the research carried out on 1) probiotic micro-organisms, including the more recent reclassification according to their phylogenetic position, 2) probiotic beverages from non-dairy sources which emerged as an alternative for lactose-intolerant consumers and, 3) the aspects of improving the gut microbiota.</span>展开更多
基金supported by Japan-Asia Youth Exchange program in Science administered by the Japan Science and Technology Agencythe National Basic Research Program of China(No.2012CB825801)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.11505188 and 11179004)
文摘Grating-based X-ray imaging can make use of conventional tube sources to provide absorption, refraction and scattering contrast images from a single set of projection images efficiently. In this paper, a fresh cherry tomato and a dried umeboshi are imaged by using X-ray Talbot–Lau interferometer. The seed distribution in the scattering image of the cherry tomato, and the wrinkles of epicarp in the refraction image of the umeboshi, are shown distinctly. The refraction and scattering images provide more information on subtle features than the absorption image. Also, the contrast-to-noise ratio values show distinguishing capacity of the three kinds of imaging techniques. The results confirm that grating-based X-ray imaging is of great potential in non-destructive fruit testing.
文摘The aim of this study is to establish the prevailing conditions of changing climatic trends and change point dates in four selected meteorological stations of Uyo, Benin, Port Harcourt, and Warri in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Using daily or 24-hourly annual maximum series (AMS) data with the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and the modified Chowdury Indian Meteorological Department (MCIMD) models were adopted to downscale the time series data. Mann-Kendall (MK) trend and Sen’s Slope Estimator (SSE) test showed a statistically significant trend for Uyo and Benin, while Port Harcourt and Warri showed mild trends. The Sen’s Slope magnitude and variation rate were 21.6, 10.8, 6.00 and 4.4 mm/decade, respectively. The trend change-point analysis showed the initial rainfall change-point dates as 2002, 2005, 1988, and 2000 for Uyo, Benin, Port Harcourt, and Warri, respectively. These prove positive changing climatic conditions for rainfall in the study area. Erosion and flood control facilities analysis and design in the Niger Delta will require the application of Non-stationary IDF modelling.
文摘Global climate change promotes the energy system reform. Achieving a high proportion of renewable energy becomes the major countries' energy strategy. As proposed in its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions(INDC), China intends to raise the proportion of non-fossil energy in primary energy consumption to about 20% by 2030. That ambitious goal means the non-fossil energy supplies by 2030 will be 7-8 times that of 2005, and the annual increase rate is more than 8% within the 25 years. Besides, the capacity of wind power, solar power, hydropower and nuclear power reaches 400 GW, 350 GW, 450 GW, and 150 GW respectively, and China's non-fossil power capacity is even greater than the U.S.'s total power capacity. In addition, the scale of natural gas increases. Consequently, by 2030, the proportion of coal falls from the current 70% to below 50%, and the CO_2 intensity of energy consumption decreases by 20% compared with the level of 2005, which play important roles in significantly reducing the CO_2 intensity of GDP. Since China has confirmed to achieve the CO_2 emissions peak around 2030,at that time, the newly added energy demand will be satisfied by non-fossil energy, and the consumption of fossil fuel will stop growing. By2030, non-fossil energy accounts for 20%, and the large scale and sound momentum of new and renewable energy industry will support the growth of total energy demand, which plays a key role in CO_2 emissions peaking and beginning to decline, and lays the foundation for establishing a new energy system dominated by new and renewable energy in the second half of the 21 st century as well as finally achieving the CO2zero-emission.
基金supported by the grant from The Research Council,Oman(RC/AGR/FOOD/11/01)
文摘Date palm tree(Phoenix dactylifera L.)is an important crop,which is cultivated in many countries extending from North Africa to the Middle East,including many of the GCC(Gulf Cooperation Council)Countries(Allaith,2008).Date palm trees have been growing for the last 5,000 years in harshest climatic condition and their fruits have been an excellent
基金The National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract No.51578315the Major Projects Fund of Chinese Ministry of Transport under contract No.201332849A090
文摘Natural hazards such as hurricanes may cause extensive economic losses and social disruption for civil structures and infrastructures in coastal areas, implying the importance of understanding the construction performance subjected to hurricanes and assessing the hurricane damages properly. The intensity and frequency of hurricanes have been reported to change with time due to the potential impact of climate change.In this paper, a probability-based model of hurricane damage assessment for coastal constructions is proposed taking into account the non-stationarity in hurricane intensity and frequency. The nonhomogeneous Poisson process is employed to model the non-stationarity in hurricane occurrence while the non-stationarity in hurricane intensity is reflected by the time-variant statistical parameters(e.g., mean value and/or standard deviation), with which the mean value and variation of the cumulative hurricane damage are evaluated explicitly. The Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA, is chosen to illustrate the hurricane damage assessment method proposed in this paper. The role of non-stationarity in hurricane intensity and occurrence rate due to climate change in hurricane damage is investigated using some representative changing patterns of hurricane parameters.
文摘Haden, Kent, Palmer, and Keitt mango varieties were studied to establish the relationship of harvest time to 1) seasonal accumulated day-degrees or heat units (<span style="white-space:nowrap;">˚</span>C), 2) daily rainfall amount (mm), and 3) physical fruit development attributes in order to fix maturity standards for export and local markets. Randomized Complete Block Design with four replications was used. In each case of Haden, Kent, Palmer, and Keitt varieties, physical fruit development attributes established as standard harvest maturity values were: weight (640 g, 836 g, 837 g, and 1104 g, respectively), length (16.31 cm, 16.19 cm, 21.22 cm, and 19 cm, respectively), width (30.97 cm, 33.47 cm, 30.86 cm, and 35.91 cm, respectively), volume (598 cm<sup>3</sup>, 807 cm<sup>3</sup>, 772 cm<sup>3</sup>, and 959 cm<sup>3</sup>, respectively), density (1.147 g/cm<sup>3</sup>, 1.076 g/cm<sup>3</sup>, 1.084 g/cm<sup>3</sup>, and 1.189 g/cm<sup>3</sup>, respectively), and indentation (0.25 cm, 0.49 cm, and 0.50 cm, respectively). The intensity of grooves around the stylar-scar end of Palmer fruits was studied and used as maturity index. Index values of 0.075 mls, 0.150 mls, 0.425 mls, and 0.116 mls, respectively, for Haden, Kent, Palmer, and Keitt varieties were recorded as latex exuded at harvest since these values tallied with the other physical harvest maturity index values, and also with those of rain fall and temperature values. Temperature, rainfall, and physical characteristics are therefore important non-destructive criteria for fixing maturity index values for mango fruits.
文摘Chili pepper (Capsicum spp.) fruit color is an important agronomical trait. It has been known that a large deletion in the 5' upstream region of the Ccs gene generates non-red fruit color in pepper, but the accurate size and position of the deletion and whether all the non-red cultivars had the same large deletion or not were unclarified. In this study, to identify the Ccs upstream large deletion, we carried out diagnostic PCR using six forward primers at 300 - 900 bp intervals in the 5' untranslated region of Ccs with a fixed reverse primer for a yellow fruit pepper “Sonia Gold”. Then it was revealed that 4430 bp from -3234 bp position in upstream region to 1196 bp position in exon was deleted in Ccs of “Sonia Gold”. The allele having this deletion was named ccs-del. Probably this allele is substantially the same as ccs-p1 having 4879 bp deletion reported previously. Based on the sequence determined, we developed a PCR marker to distinguish ccs-del. Genotyping of 16 cultivars of C. annuum showed that 14 had ccs-del and the remaining two had another mutant allele ccs-3. This result indicates that ccs-del is the most common allele and widely shared in non-red fruit cultivars in C. annuum. Genotyping of 16 cultivars of C. chinense clarified that one cultivar each possessed ccs-del and ccs-3. These results indicate that major alleles responsible for non-red fruit color in C. annuum were shared across species throughout interspecific introgression.
文摘<span style="font-family:Verdana;">The growing interest of consumers in using foods that improve health has motivated researchers and the food industry to develop new functional products such as foods with probiotics. Probiotic cultures, for example, from lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria have been highlighted for their ability to promote balance in the intestinal microbiota as well as other benefits such as anticarcinogenic and antimutagenic effects, reduced plasma cholesterol levels, decreased symptoms of lactose intolerance, and stimulation of the immune </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">response. Traditionally, probiotics are incorporated into dairy products.</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> However, because of the growing number of individuals affected by lactose into</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">lerance and/or vegans, other food matrices have been studied as potential</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> car</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">riers for these microorganisms. Considering all the facts mentioned above, cereals, legumes, fruits, and vegetables could be potential substrates, where</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> probiotic bacteria can be used for the development of non-dairy beverages. This review aimed to highlight the research carried out on 1) probiotic micro-organisms, including the more recent reclassification according to their phylogenetic position, 2) probiotic beverages from non-dairy sources which emerged as an alternative for lactose-intolerant consumers and, 3) the aspects of improving the gut microbiota.</span>
