The nonleptonic two body B decays involving a light tensor meson in final states

The nonleptonic two body Bu,d,s,c decays involving a light tensor meson in final states are studied in the perturbative QCD approach based on kT factorization. The decay modes with a tensor meson emitted, are prohibited in naive factorization, since the emission diagram with a tensor meson produced from vacuum is vanished. While contributions from the so-called hard scattering emission diagrams and annihilation type diagrams are important and calculable in the perturbative QCD approach. The branching ratios of most decays are in the range of 10-4-10-8, which are bigger by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude than the predictions given by the naive factor- ization, but consistent with the predictions from the QCD factorization and the recent experimental measurements. We also give the predictions for the direct CP asymmetries, some of which are large enough for the future experiments to measure. We also find that, even with a small mixing angle, the mixing between f2 and f′2 can bring remarkable changes to both branching ratios and the direct CP asymmetries for some decays involving f2（′） mesons. For decays with a vector meson and a tensor meson in final states, we predict a large percentage of transverse polarization contributions due to the contributions of the orbital angular momentum of the tensor mesons.     

Some recent theoretical progress in Higgs boson and top quark physics at hadron colliders

The test of the Standard Model and search for New Physics signal are main aim of LHC experiment. With the increasing of the measurement accuracy at the LHC, it is a major task in future to exceed the current accuracy of the theoretical predictions for important processes, in particular ones involving Higgs boson and top quark. In this review we briefly summarize some recent theoretical progress in Higgs boson and top quark physics, especially the fixed-order and resummation predictions in QCD at both the Tevatron and the LHC.     

Form factors for B meson weak decays in QCD light cone sum rules with a chiral current correlator

We report some applications of QCD light cone sum rules （LCSR） to B meson weak decays. Special emphasis is on estimates of the form factors for B decays into a pseudoscalar （P）/vector （V） meson, with a certain chiral current correlator. The main new ingredient, as compared with the case of the standard correlators, is that in the operator product expansion calculations, the contributions due to the twist-3 distribution amplitudes of the related light mesons, which are less known and would bring a larger uncertainty to the calculations with the standard correlators, cancel out fully in the B →P case and do out partially in the B → V one. An important observa- tion, which is similar to that in soft collinear effective theory, is made in twist-3 approximation： whereas only one independent form factor is needed for parameterizing the hadronic matrix elements for a B →P transition induced by all the relevant heavy-light quark currents, there exist two independent form factors under the condition of neglecting the terms suppressed by a factor of m^2, for the B → V transition. Therefore, the improved LCSR approach could be of stronger predictive power for the weak form factors. Also, this approach is employed to understand the B →D transitions by introducing a leading twist-2 DA for an energetic D meson, combined with some of other QCD- based approaches. A detailed QCD next-to-leading order calculation of the B →π form factors is presented for an illustrative purpose, and the sum rule results are used to extract the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element IVubl from the latest BaBar data.     

On extra neutral and charged Higgs bosons at the LHC

The properties of 125 GeV new particle, which was discovered in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider （LHC）, are found to be consistent with those of the Higgs boson in the standard model （SM）. Hereafter the new particle is dubbed as SM-like Higgs boson. However there is still spacious room for physics beyond the SM （BSM） due to the limited energy and luminosity of the LHC. With more data, experiments will scrutinize whether the new particle is indeed the SM one or not. At the same time, one believes that discovery of the SM-like Higgs boson is just the start of the new era of particle physics. The predominant topic is whether there are other new Higgs bosons as speculated in various BSM models. In this short review, we will describe the current status of Higgs physics at the LHC and several BSM models which contain more Higgs sectors. In literatures, there are numerous studies on extended Higgs sector and a comprehensive review is beyond the scope of this review. Instead, we will present two latest studies on Higgs physics： （1） how to detect the charged Higgs boson and measure tan β after including the top polarization information, and （2） how to discover the extra neutral Higgs boson via the pair production of SM-like Higgs boson.     

Lons-term variations of solar activity

Using the Lomb-Scargle periodogram we analyzed two sunspot series： the one over the past 11000 years at the 10-year interval based upon the survey data of ^14C concentration in tree-rings, reconstructed by Solanki et al.; and the sunspot number over the past 7000 years, derived from geomagnetic variations by Usoskin et al. We found the periods and quasi-periods in solar activity, such as about 225, 352, 441,522 and 561 a, and near 1000 and 2000 a. An approach of wavelet transform was applied to check the two sunspot time series, with emphasis on investigating time-varying characteristics in the long-term fluctuations of solar activity. The results show that the lengths and amplitudes of the periods have changed with time, and large variations have taken place during some periods.     

Quantitative analysis of biotechnical reinforcement for a steep slope consisting of composite coal-gangue-soil medium adjacent to a mined-out area

The engineering and geological characteristics of a steep slope consisting of coal gangue, rock and soil medium in Huating coal mine have been comprehensively investigated. Owing to humid weather, heavy rainfall, vegetation and porous characteristics of the soil and rock mass, the steep slope will be destabilized and induce mud-rock flow or derive hazard easily. Firstly, based on the classical slope reinforcement theory, some regularity between the shear and displacement in the destabilized zone of the slope with or without root strength contribution is presented. Then, based on the experimental and statistical analysis of root strength, hydrological characteristics and stability status, etc., some possible biotechnical techniques for reinforcement of the steep slope have been suggested. These methods are important for quantitative analysis of destabilization of the slope and design of the biotechnical reinforcement.     

Long-term variations of solar activity

Using the Lomb-Scargle periodogram we analyzed two sunspot series: the one over the past 11000 years at the 10-year interval based upon the survey data of 14C concentration in tree-rings, recon- structed by Solanki et al.; and the sunspot number over the past 7000 years, derived from geomagnetic variations by Usoskin et al. We found the periods and quasi-periods in solar activity, such as about 225, 352, 441, 522 and 561 a, and near 1000 and 2000 a. An approach of wavelet transform was applied to check the two sunspot time series, with emphasis on investigating time-varying characteristics in the long-term fluctuations of solar activity. The results show that the lengths and amplitudes of the periods have changed with time, and large variations have taken place during some periods.     

The Impact of China''''s WTO Entry on the Industrial Structure of the Yangtze River Delta

In the areas of China access into WTO Agreements, Chinese government has made lots of promises in reducing tariffs of some industrial products. While industrial products make up a very large share of import and export, so nearly all kinds of them will be influenced, especially those which are protected by means of national tariffs and taxes and non- tariffs barriers on import-sand, to a lesser extent, on exports. Meanwhile we have noticed that most of these industries are the pillar ones of Yangtze Delta. As it is well known that Yangtze Delta has become the most developed area in Yangtze valley or even in China and had an important effect on China economy. Thus entry to the WTO requires reform to be accelerated in this district so as to put the industry of this region in a position to be able to cope with the greater foreign competition that will follow accession to the trade body.     

Embryo implantation: A time for recalling and forwarding

The success of embryo implantation is a critical step towards further embryo development and pregnancy outcome. The observations and investigations on embryo implantation have been over a century. A huge body of knowledge has been accumulated in anatomy, histology, ultrastructure and hormonal regulation; as well as recently in depth information about molecular signaling pathways got from studies of genomic wide gene screening and specific gene deletion. The knowledge from basic research has also substantially helped to initiate and improve the Artificial Reproductive Technology （ART） in clinical applications. Now we＇ve known that the normal embryo implantation involves the embryo＇s development into an implantation-competent blastocyst and the synchronized transformation of uteri into a receptive stage. The interdependent relationship between the blastocyst and uterus involves complicated hormonal regulation and local paracrine, juxtacrine interactions. In this paper, we review some important historical findings regarding uterine receptivity and blastocyst activation, as well as some less discussed topics such as embryo spacing, embryo orientation. Further understandings on detailed mechanisms during the process of embryo implantation will help cure women infertility as well as develop new generation of non-steroids contraceptives.     

Full-angle optical imaging of near-infrared fluorescent probes implanted in small animals

To provide a valuable experimental platform for in vivo biomedical research of small animal model with fluorescence mediated approach, we developed a whole-body near-infrared fluorescence molecular imaging system as described in this paper. This system is based on a sensitive CCD camera and has the ability to achieve 360~ full-angle source illuminations and projections capture of the targets to obtain the dense sampling by performing rotational scan. The measurement accuracy is validated from cylinder phantom experiments by the comparison between the experimental data and theoretical predictions. Finally, we also present typical in vivo images of fluorescent tube implanted into the mouse body. The results are promising and have proved the system imaging performance for macroscopic optical biomedical research.     

Applications of stable isotopes to study plant-animal relationships in terrestrial ecosystems

As natural tracers, stable isotopes have been extensively used in plant physiological, ecological and environmental research. Recently, animal physiological ecologists have also applied stable isotope techniques to study plantanimal relationships. The isotopic compositions of animal body generally reflect and integrate their diets over a time period ranging from hours to years to the lifetime of an individual. When animal living habitat changes or animals move to a new environment, the animal isotopic compositions will shift accordingly. Thus, stable isotope signatures of an animal can truly reflect its food sources, habitat, distribution and movement patterns during a given time period. Moreover, by analyzing animal-tissue isotopic compositions at different temporal scales, we can improve our understanding of animal adaptation to environmental changes. Stable isotope technique also provides an ideal tool to study animal foodweb relationship and community structure because of isotopic fractionation during the processes of nutrient assimilation by animals. Stable isotope technique can continuously measure animal trophic position in a foodweb, which can eventually reveal the predator-prey relationship and its role in determining matter balance and energy flow in the entire ecosystem. Stable isotope technique has been one of the most important and efficient tools in studying plant-animal relationship. In this paper, we first review recent advances in the application of stable isotope techniques to plant-animal relationship research then evaluate their advantages and disadvantages, and finally discuss some future directions associated with stable isotope applications to plant-animal relationship research.     

Medical Mountain Rescue in the Yushu Earthquake: Have lessons been learned?

On April 14, 2010, an earthquake reaching 7.1 Richter scale struck Jiegu Town of Yushu, a mountain rescue operation promptly unfolded. All injurers have a direct assess to medical care, and immediately rescued and rapidly evacuated by air to Xining and Golmud at lower altitudes and admitted to advanced hospitals. Almost all of the injurers have been completely recovered. Yushu quake was a highest earthquake in the world, a high incidence of acute altitude illness, which was observed in about 80% of the lowland rescuers at an altitude of 4 000m. “Rescue the rescuers” becomes a major task of the Qinghai-Tibetan rescue teams, all the severe patients rapidly descend to Xining and treated promptly and effectively the outcome was excellent, all patients survived. After the quake, a long and arduous task of reconstruction of what has been destroyed. Medical teams continue to work in the Yushu quake area because some 30,000 workers and carders are now here for rebuilding where the quake was centered. Thus the treatment and prevention of altitude illness are still critical tasks for medical teams. Although all the fights were meet with success, there are more experiences and lessons we have been learned from the medical mountain rescue during the quake and the period of reconstruction, reported here are sum up of our experiences from the medical mountain rescue operation in Yushu earthquake and draw the lessons that we should be learned. With the possibly increased earthquake occurred in the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, we also should be prepared against quake disasters and further rescue training in the high mountains will increased rescue capacities.     

In situ AFM observation of BSA adsorption on HOPG with nanobubble

Nanobubbles have been proven existent at the liquid/solid interface, and become a focus of research on varied interfacial processes. In the present work, by observing in situ with atomic force microscope (AFM), we found that nanobubbles could influence the adsorption process of bovine serum albumin (BSA) on hydrophobic surface of highly ordered pyrolytic graphite (HOPG). BSA could adsorb evenly, and coexist with nanobubbles at water/HOPG interface. After removing nanobubbles by injecting ethanol, some hollows were found in the BSA layers at the same positions of nanobubbles existing previously. These hollows were about 8 nm in depth and dozens of nanometers in diameter. The correlation coefficient between the areas of nanobubbles and that of the corresponding hollows reached 0.88―0.94, which strongly supported the assumption that the hollows were indeed caused by the nanobubbles. Moreover, the BSA molecules formed rings around the nanobubbles, suggesting the preference of BSA adsorption onto the contact line at water/HOPG interface.     

Effect of precession on the Asian summer monsoon evolution: A systematic review

Geological climatic records and model simulations on the Asian summer monsoon climate change induced by insolation forcing of the Earth＇s precession are systematically reviewed in this paper. The presentation of the questions on the mechanism of the Asian monsoon evolution at the precession band, currently existing debates and future research directions are discussed. Since the early 1980s, more and more observed evidence and simulated results, especially the absolute-dated stalagmite records and orbital-scale transient model runs in the last few years, have indicated that the quasi-20ka period in the Quaternary monsoon climate change is caused by precession. However, debates still exist on the dynamic mechanism how precession affects the Asian monsoon. The ＂zero phase＂ hypothesis says that the Asian monsoon is merely controlled by summer insolation in the Northern Hemisphere （NH） while the ＂latent heat＂ hypothesis emphasizes the dominant effect of latent heat transport from the Southern Hemisphere （SH） besides the role of the northern insolation. The two hypotheses have separately been supported by some evidence. Although we are cognizant of the importance of northern solar radiation and the remote effect of southern insolation, it has still a long way to go before comprehensively understanding the evolutionary mechanism of the Asian monsoon. In view of the problems existing in present researches of monsoon-dominated climate change at the precession scale, we propose that studies on the environmental significance of geological monsoon proxies, feedback processes in the long-term transient simulations and intercomparisons between observations and modeling results should be strengthened in the future.     

Natural selection and adaptive evolution of leptin

Leptin is an adiposity-secreted hormone that is pivotal in regulating feeding behavior,energy metabolism and body mass.The study of leptin has been of crucial importance for public health and pharmaceutical intervention given its role in obesity.Generally,leptin is highly conserved due to its functional importance.However,episodes of rapid sequence evolution and positive selection have been observed in some mammalian species,indicating that the leptin functions in these animals may have undergone adaptive modification to their environments.In this article,we review the adaptive evolution of leptin and its potential functional consequences.This review is expected to guide future research of molecular evolution and functional assays of this gene,and also to provide a theoretical foundation for the use of leptin in therapeutic applications.     

Cellular mechanism of cardiac alternans： an unresolved chicken or egg problem

T-wave alternans, a specific form of cardiac alternans, has been associated with the increased suscep- tibility to cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death （SCD）. Plenty of evidence has related cardiac alternans at the tissue level to the instability of voltage kinetics or Ca^2＋ handling dynamics at the cellular level. However, to date, none of the existing experiments could identify the exact cellular mechanism of cardiac alternans due to the bi-directional coupling between voltage kinetics and Ca^2＋ handling dynamics. Either of these systems could be the origin of alternans and the other follows as a secondary change, therefore making the cellular mechanism of alternans a difficult chicken or egg problem. In this context, theoretical analysis combined with experimental techniques provides a possibility to explore this problem. In this review, we will summarize the experimental and theoretical advances in understanding the cellular mechanism of alternans. We focus on the roles of action potential duration （APD） restitution and Ca^2＋ handling dynamics in the genesis of alternans and show how the theoretical analysis combined with experimental techniques has provided us a new insight into the cellular mechanism of alternans. We also discuss the possible reasons of increased propensity for alternans in heart failure （HF） and the new possible therapeutic targets. Finally, according to the level of electrophysiological recording techniques and theoretical strategies, we list some critical experimental or theoretical challenges which may help to determine the origin of alternans and to find more effective therapeutic tar- gets in the future.     

Evidence for tritium production in the Earth's interior

We have made a new investigation on the vertical profiles of tritium and helium isotopes in Lakes Van and Nemrut(Eastern Turkey),using experimental data from the reference by Kipfer et al.for study of long-term vertical mixing and deep water renewal in Lake Van.Lakes Van and Nemrut are crater lakes.Lake Nemrut is at the western border of Lake Van.The 3He and 4He are injected at the bottom of Lakes Van and Nemrut,and the both helium isotopes are confirmed from the mantle source.From 3H(tritium) data in Lakes Van and Nemrut,we have observed "3H anomaly" at the vertical profile of 3H concentrations in Lake Nemrut.The 3H concentration at the lake bottom is 10% higher than at the surface.The difference of 3H concentrations between surface and bottom is about 3.7±1.2 TU.This excess 3H should be injected from the lake bottom.An investigation on the origin of the injected tritium has been made.The results show the conventional origins are excluded,such as residence of precipitation tritium from nuclear testing in the early 1950s-1960s and tritium from known nuclear reactions.Based on the correlation of excess 3H with 3He and heat flow in Lake Nemrut,we infer that the 3He and 3H might be all from the mantle source,and produced by the supposed natural-nuclear-fusion,which might occur in an environment rich in water(H) and(U Th) at high temperature and high pressure in the deep Earth.Detection of tritium in the Earth's interior is a key evidence for exploration of natural nuclear fusion in the deep Earth.Based on the published data,we have found that the excess 3He and 3H injected at the bottom of Lake Laacher(Germany) were also released from the mantle source.The present work will be helpful to the further study of mechanism of natural nuclear fusion in the Earth's interior.