Impacts of grassland fence on the behavior and habitat area of the critically endangered Przewalski’s gazelle around the Qinghai Lake

The trend of fencing grassland as livestock paddocks is spreading on the Eurasian steppe,however,its impacts on grassland wildlife are little known.In order to explore such impacts,we carried out a field study on how grassland fencing impacts Przewalski’s gazelle(Procapra przewalskii),a species listed as EN(Endangered) by SSC/IUCN,on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.The results revealed that(1) in the fenced areas,daily movement distance of Przewalski’s gazelle was 5081±1187 m(Hudong-Ketu) and 4110±912 m(Yuanzhe),which was much shorter than the 7223±546 m recorded in an unfenced area(Kuaierma);(2) the feeding bout duration of Przewalski’s gazelle was much shorter in the fenced habitat;(3) the frequency of walking along both high or low fence lines reached about 81%;while the frequency of jumping across the low fence line was only about 1.2% and frequency of crawling through the bottom of the high fence lines was about 17.8%;(4) the size of post-fencing habitat decreased to about 20% and 6% of the sizes of pre-fencing habitat in Hudong-Ketu and Yuanzhe areas respectively,but no clear change in the size of habitat area was found in the unfenced Kuaierma area;and(5) the fence lines impaired the possibility of gazelles to escape from predators and occasionally trapped the Przewalski’s gazelle which failed to jump over the fence lines.Death occurrence of Przewalski’s gazelle in the intensively fenced area,including gazelles strangled by fence lines and predated by wolves,reached 5% of the population size in Yuanzhe and up to 15%-20% in Hudong-Ketu.This study highlights the negative impacts of grassland fencing on Przewalski’s gazelle and proposes measures for integrating conservation of this gazelle with livestock management practice.     

Monitoring lake changes of Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau over the past30 years using satellite remote sensing data

During the years 2006–2009,lakes in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau(QTP)were investigated using satellite remote sensing strategies.We report the results of this investigation as well as follow-up research and expanded work.For the investigation,we mainly focused on lakes whose areas are more than 1 km2.The remote sensing data that we used included 408 scenes of CBERS CCD images and 5 scenes of Landsat ETM?images in Qinghai Province and Tibet Autonomous Region.All these data were acquired around years 2005–2006.Besides remote sensing images,we also collected 1,259 topographic maps.Numbers and areas of lakes were analyzed statistically,which were then compared with those coming from the first lake investigation(implemented between the1960s and 1980s).According to our investigation,up to and around year 2005–2006,the total number of lakes in the QTP was 1,055(222 in Qinghai and 833 in Tibet),accounting for more than 30%of that of China.Thirty newborn lakes with area[1 km2were found,and 5 dead lakes with initial area[1 km2were also found.Among those 13 big lakes([500 km2),Yamzhog Yumco had seriously shrunk,and it has continued to shrink in recent years;Qinghai Lake had shrunk during the period,but some new researches indicated that it has been expanding since the year 2004;Siling Co,Nam Co,and Chibuzhang Co had expanded in the period.We divided the newborn lakes into six categories according to their forming reasons,including river expansion,wetland conversion,etc.The changes of natural conditions led to the death of four lakes,and human exploitation was the main reason for the death of Dalianhai Lake in Qinghai.We picked out three regions which were sensitive to the change of climate and ecological environment:Nagqu Region,Kekexili Region,and the source area of the Yellow River(SAYR).Lakes in both Nagqu and Kekexili have been expanded;meanwhile,most lakes in the SAYR have obviously been shrunk.These regional patterns of lake changes were highly related to variations of temperature,glacier,precipitation,and evaporation.Our investigation and analysis will provide references for researches related to lake changes in the QTP and the response to climate fluctuations.     

Studies on the changes of West Lake＇s zoobenthic communites after Qiantang River water was pumped into it

During Jan. 1995 to Dec. 1996, monthly investigations on the zoobenthic conummities of West Lake, samples were collected from six sampling stations. A total of 26 species of macmzoobenthes were identified. The seasonal changes in density and biomass of zoobenthos in this lake were analyzed. The annual mean densities were 980- 2751 ind/m^2 and mean biomass was 19.69 - 122.80 g/m^2. The densities in winter and early spring were higher than those in sumr~r and autunm. Comimrafive study of theprevious data ( 1982 to 1983) collected by the authors, showed that the succession of zoobenthic conammities, dominated by Procludius choreus in density and Bellamya purificata in biomass, had been occurred in Xiaonan sub-lake after Qiantang River water was drawn into it; and that the species and biomass of zoobenthes were then increased and the density was decreased. In other sub-lakes, the dominant species were Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri and Tokunag-ayusurika akamusi in density and Branchiura sowerbyi and Tokunagayusurika akamusi in biomass. The water quality was bad in these sub-lakes because these dominant species are indicators of eutrophication. According to the Margalef index and Goodnight index, West Lake is still an eutrophic lake. Only the water quality of Xiaonan sub-lake was improved after water drawn from the Qiantang River was introduced into it.     

Quantitative reconstruction of the paleosalinity at Qinghai Lake in the past 900 years

Based on the function relationship between the shell length of Limnocythere inopinata and the salinity of its living water in Tibetan Plateau lakes, the paleosalinty of Qinghai Lake in the past 900 years was reconstructed through the measurement of the adult body length of Limnocythere inopinata. Meanwhile, the paleosalinity sequence of Qinghai Lake during the same period was rebuilt by the St/Ca ratio of the shell of Eucypris inflata combined with the St/Ca ratio of living ostracod valves from the species of genus Eucypris inflata and the host water. The paleosalinity results obtained by two different methods were compared and assessed in this paper. To check the result, it was also contrasted with other historical climatic sequences of this area including tree ring and ice core. It was shown that the paleosalinity sequence rebuilt by adult ostracod body length had high reliability, and the paleosalinity reconstruction method by trace elements of ostracod shells was not suitable for Qinghai Lake. From the reconstructed paleosalinty sequence of Qinghai Lake, it can be found that low salinity during 1160-1290 AD showed the humid climate condition on the Mediaeval Warm Period in this area, while the high salinity during 1410-1540 AD, 1610-1670 AD and 1770-1850 AD which was corresponding to the three cold pulses of the Little Ice Age with a dry climate condition. And the high salinity in the latest several decades was consistent with recent warm and dry trends of the climate in this area. The good consistency of the reconstructed palaeosalinity sequence and the precipitation sequence in this area rebuilt by tree ring proves the reconstruction of past lake salinity is reliable.     

Developing College Students’ English Speaking Skills in Chinese Context

As one of the four important communication skills,speaking has long been neglected in the language teaching,while oral English teaching has always been the weak points in college English education.Since China began to reform and open the door to the outside world,oral English becomes more and more important.However,the traditional oral English education failed to meet the demand of social development,for many graduates couldn’t communicate in English smoothly.This is due to the inappropriateness of traditional oral English education.The thesis is to discuss the present condition of Chinese students in oral classroom and sets up a new teaching model.In this part the new model is discussed in detail from the perspective of students,teaching materials,teacher,and teaching method.     

Noeggerathiales as coal-forming plants in Cathaysia: conclusions from an Early Permian vegetational Pompeii in Inner Mongolia

Noeggerathiales are an extinct group of sporebearing plants of uncertain systematic position that are known from Carboniferous and Permian age Euramerican and Cathaysian floras that occurred in presentday Europe, North America, and East Asia. The order Noeggerathiales includes over 50 species of more than 20 fossil genera, but their paleoecology is not well understood yet. Previously this group had been found only in extrabasinal floras or those inhabiting clastic wetlands. Noeggerathiales have never been recorded in coal ball floras. Thus, it is up to now uncertain whether this group has contributed to the formation of coal. Recent investigations of an Early Permian peatforming flora of the Taiyuan Formation near Wuda, Inner Mongolia, which was preserved in a volcanic ash fall has provided evidence that noeggerathialean plants not only existed in the peatforming vegetation but could even be the dominant group in some areas of the coal swamp. The Noeggerathiales in this particular peatforming forest include Tingia unita, Paratingia wudensis, and a new species of Paratingia. Exceptionally well-preserved specimens indicate that these noeggerathialean plants are small trees with a canopy of compound leaves and strobili near the top of an unbranched （monocaulous） stem.     

Process-based modeling analyses of Sabina przewalskii growth response to climate factors around the northeastern Qaidam Basin

Sabina przewalskii is the longest living endemic tree species in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau,and has been widely employed in tree ring based climate research in China.However,most dendroclimatic reconstructions have been primarily based on empirical relationships between tree growth and climate factors identified by statistical assessment.To date,the physiological relationships between tree growth and their limiting climate factors have not been properly assessed.Here,we simulated the physiological response of Sabina przewalskii tree growth to major limiting climate factors based on the Vaganov-Shashkin (VS) model.The VS modeled results validated the relationships between tree ring and climate factors constructed by statistical models,both approaches suggesting that precipitation during the early growing season,especially in May and June,has significant effect on tree growth,while temperature mainly affects tree growth by warming-induced drought and by extending the growing season.Under current and projected climate scenarios,our modeling results predict an increase in radial growth of Sabina przewalskii around the Qaidam Basin,with the potential outcome that regional forests will increase their capacity to sequester carbon.     

Calibration of the U 37 K′ index of long-chain alkenones with the in-situ water temperature in Lake Qinghai in the Tibetan Plateau

Long-chain alkenones (LCAs) can potentially be used as indicators to understand past variations in lacustrine environments.Previous research has suggested that the relationship between the temperature and the unsaturation index of LCAs should be calibrated individually,because of the possible variations in the alkenone-producing algal species in the lacustrine environment.In this work,we have calibrated U37K’ of water filter samples against the in-situ water temperature in Lake Qinghai,Tibetan Plateau.There are significant relationships between U37K’ and the water temperature,a non-linear relationship was derived.Because the U37K’ values did not respond sensitively at lower temperatures,we suggested that a quadratic regression (U37K’ =0.0011×T2-0.0201×T+0.1959,n=15,r2=0.74) was appropriate than linear regression to represent the relationship between the in-situ temperatures and U37K’.Meanwhile,the U37K correlation relationship was not more significant than U37K’ index in our study.Because of the C37:4 effects by salinity change,we suggest U37K is not as robust as the U37K’ index as a temperature proxy,at least for the salt lake in the Tibetan Plateau.The calibration of the U37K’ index in this work has provided a new understanding of historic climatic changes in the Tibetan Plateau.     

Risk Management of the Escalator Overturned Accident

Escalator is a vehicle related to people’s daily life closely while it incurs safety problems frequently.Therefore,developing a new methodology for escalator safety assessment is very important.In this paper,the related suitable risk analysis models for the escalator overturned accident were proposed on different risk management stages.Firstly,field of the escalator was surveyed and information was collected to identify the danger sources.Secondly,a safety assessment process was done for escalator risk evaluation.Then the dangerous levels were devised based on the LEC evaluation method.According to the results,targeted management measures suggestions and effective safety strategy were proposed finally to solve the escalator overturned problems.The practice has proven that the safety assessment method in this paper is convenient,efficient and effective,which helps to improve the elevators safety level in China and supports the government management.     

一个面向服务的教学计划框架体系

The science of services constitutes a breakthrough in the traditional way of thinking of the place of informatics in the economic development of a State,a Region,an enterprise and consequently in the teaching programs.The question is no more only a question of computer science.We are in front of a more complex situation,which requires not only a multidisciplinary approach,but an interoperable approach at the intellectual level.This paper is an introduction to this complexity and it is also an attempt to propose crucial questions about the new bachelor programs and master programs.     

A new species of Gobiconodon （Triconodonta, Mammalia） and its implication for the age of Jehol Biota

A new species of Gobiconodon is found from the Yixian Formation of western Liaonlng, China. The new taxa,G zofiae sp. nov., has a confluent opening for branches Ⅱand Ⅲ of the trigeminal nerve on the anterior lamina of the petrosal. G zofiae sp. nov. is similar to Repenomamus in having an ossified Meckel‘s cartilage connecting the lower jaws and ear region. The new species, with enlarged I^1/I1, posteriorly located infraorbital foramen and four mental foramina,distinctly differs from the other species of Gobiconodon. The new material indicates that Gobiconodon has four, not five,upper molariforms. The presence of Gobiconodon in Jchol Biota makes it possible to correlate Jehol Biota with faunas in eastern Asia and North America, and suggests the age of the Yixian Formation to be Early Cretaceous.     

Solid Freeforming and Combinatorial Research

A view of manufacturing processes is presented in which five distinct categories are defined as casting, deformation, machining, joining, and solid freeforming. Solid freeforming is essentially biomimetic and shares problems of morphogenesis with natural processes. Our team in University of London has been exploring three mechanisms of solid freeforming. In dry powder deposition and direct ink-jet printing, the emphasis has turned to the problem of delivering a complex shape in which the three dimensional spatial arrangement of composition is delivered from the design file. In extrusion freeforming, the aim is to control microstructure at hierarchical levels also from the design file. The quest for 3-D functional gradients is satisfied by acoustic and ultrasonic dispensing and mixing of powders so that each layer can be patterned. These methods could be extended to deliver the complex patterns demanded by left-handed microwave metamaterials. Dry powder deposition and direct ink-jet printing are turning towards combinatorial methods in which multiple sample libraries are used to accelerate discovery. In turn, this paves the way for ’autonomous research machines’ which steer their own search refinements in response to our requests for new materials. In this way, solid freeforming used for sample preparation can give an ’arm’ to an intelligent machine so that it can conduct its own experimentation and learning; an idea that originated with Alan Turing in the late 1940s.     

Heart-Rate Analysis of Healthy and Insomnia Groups with Detrended Fractal Dimension Feature in Edge

Insomnia, whether situational or chronic, affects over a third of the general population in today’s society.However, given the lack of non-contact and non-inductive quantitative evaluation approaches, most insomniacs are often unrecognized and untreated. Although Polysomnographic(PSG) is considered as one of the assessment methods, it is poorly tolerated and expensive. In this paper, with the recent development of Internet-of-Things devices and edge computing techniques, we propose a detrended f...     

A new Euprox from the Late Miocene of Yuanmou,Yunnan Province,China,with interpretation of its paleoenvironment

The Yuanmou Basin of Yunnan Province is a hotspot for the research of early homind evolution and its environmental background.During the implementation of the Program“Research of the Origin and Evolution of Early Man and Its Environmental Baqckground” from 1998 to 2001,a huge quantity of hominoid and mammal fossils were collected.The present report systematically describes an Euprox robustus sp.nov.identified during the recent laboratory work on the collected material.Euprox is a group of earliest cervids with true antlers.The new species is the third one of the genus discovered in China.Judged by its morphologic characteristics,the new species feed on juicy and tender leaves of dicotyledon.It implies that the vegetation of its epoch in the Yuanmou Basin is a kind of southern subtropical evergreen forest and the climate is humid and temperate with evident seasonality.The latter is mostly influenced by the monsoon and secondly by the latitude.     

On the measurement for the speed of gravity

Newton’s law of gravity is a theory of instantaneous action at a distance.However,Einstein’s general relativity states that the speed of gravity equals the speed of light,which is finite.Therefore,it is a worthy problem to discuss if Newton’s law of gravity needs modification,when studying and observing the gravitational tidal.In this paper,it is shown that the Newton’s law of gravity is fully applicable in the framework of general relativity.Based on the post-Newtonian approximation,we find that the observable effect for the speed of gravity is irrelevant to the velocity of a moving source,but it is dependent on its acceleration.In general,the effect of the speed of gravity is so weak that today’s any astronomical observations,including the sun tidal observations,can not confirm that the gravitational field travels at the speed of light.     

Millennial temperature reconstruction based on tree-ring widths of Qilian juniper from Wulan, Qinghai Province, China

The climate of the past 1000 years is an important context for evaluating the recent climate warming. However, there are few 1000-year-long climate reconstructions with annual resolution in the Qinghal-Tibet Plateau. In this paper, a dendroclimatic analysis was conducted for the radial growth of Qilian juniper from the upper forest limit in Wulan, Qinghai Province. The results of correlation analysis between the tree-ring widths and the climate variables indicate that the growth of junipers at the upper forest limit is mainly limited by low temperatures of September, November and February of the pregrowth season, and July of the current growth season. There is no significant correlation between the tree-ring widths and precipitation. A mean temperature from the previous year＇s September to the current year＇s April was reconstructed for the Wulan area since A.D. 1000. The reconstruction can explain 40.8% of the instrumental variance in the calibration period （1856-2002）. The reconstruction shows that the 20th century is the warmest 100 years, and the 1990s is the warmest decade during the past 1000 years, while the coldest 100 years and decade occur at 1600-1699 and 1642-1651, respectively. The variations are verified well by the temperature reconstruction of the middle Qilian Mountain （QL） and the total organic carbon （TOC） in the Qinghai Lake sediments. The comparison of our reconstruction with the annual temperature reconstruction of extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere suggests that the climate of Wulan during the Medieval Warm Period is of obvious regional specialty, but there was a good response to the climate of hemispheric scales during the recent 400 years.     

An Analysis of the Theme and the Characters in"The Destructors"

Graham Greene is one of the most important English writers in the 20th century.In Greene’s novels,readers easily find a literary world which is a dark land filled with violence,guilt,corruption and other forms of evil."The Destructors"also reflects this theme.Being interested in the story and the teenagers’growing-up,the author starts this paper-An Analysis of the theme and the characters in"The Destructors".First of all,this paper discusses the reasons that cause the gang to make destructions.The children are so violent;it has its intangible needs.It gives a new view to think about the children’s heart and makes us to recognize what the war left to people,especially to the children.And then,based on the analysis of the theme and characters,this paper discusses that the characters and their actions project the theme to a great extent,and that the teenagers’psychology and actions are greatly determined by their surroundings,which should be reconsidered by instructors.The moral and character education should gain a good deal of enlightenment from it.     

The age of the plant fossil assemblage in the Liuqu Conglomerate of southern Tibet and its tectonic significance

The Liuqu Conglomerate, situated to the south of Yarlung Tsangbo Suture Zone (YTSZ), is a suit of molasse formed in a foreland basin of the Himalayan orogenic belt after the collision between the two plates of the Indian and Eurasion. It is of great significance in constraining the younger limit time of the collision of the two plates and providing stratigraphic evidence to reveal the post?collisional tectonic evolution and uplifting history of the Tibet plateau. However, the age of this molasse suit and its correlation to other synchronous strata distributed in southern Tibet have been in great disputes for a long time. Especially in recent years, argues on its ages are growing violently with the recognition of the great sedimentary tectonic significances of this molasse. During the field work carried out recently on this molasse suit, a lot of plant fossils were found preserved in fairly good conditions in the upper part of this strata, which is of great help in determining its age. By identification, the assemblage of the plant fossils belongs to a tropic to subtropic flora developed in the southern margin of the Northern Hemisphere supercontinent during the Middle to Later Eocene, which can provide good constraint on its formation age. This paper is to give a brief introduction of the plant assemblage and its age, and to discuss their tectonic significances.     

Nature or Nurture—On the Development of Children’s Language

Referring to children’s development,especially the development of children’s language,there is a question that people are very interested in,that is,does the development of children’s language on earth depend on innate inheritance or postnatal environment? In order to answer this question,this paper begins with the definition of the development of children’s language,then,expounds some theories on language acquisition,finally,finds out the crucial factors influencing the development of children’s language.     

Design flood of ungauged basins based on DEM

In this paper,the northern mountainous area of Fuzhou City which is an ungauged basin has been taken for example to discuss the method of design flood calculation by means of combining the DEM(digital elevation model) and the Xin’anjiang Model(three components).The problem of estimating the parameters of the runoff model has been solved by using the parameters of the reference station.In the conflux calculation,the isochrones are obtained by DEM which helps to avoid the cumbersome work of drawing them on the map.With the establishment of the digital elevation model throughout the country,it is practically significant to use it in the hydrological estimation.