[en] This patent describes a process for moving an article at a velocity in excess of 10 Kilometers per second. It comprises providing a contactless, mass transfer system comprised of a chamber formed by alternating sections of superconductive material and electromagnetic coils, and means for cooling the chamber; providing a magnetized object which has a weight of at least about 1 gram and a magnetic field strength of at least about 1 Gauss; disposing the magnetized object within the chamber; delivering asynchronous direct current pulses to the chamber while the magnetized object is disposed within the chamber; whereby the magnetized object is caused to move within the chamber

[en] Dissolve black carbon (DBC) has been recently recognized as an important fraction of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in both rivers and ocean. It is estimated that about 10% of the riverine DOC transported by the world rivers could be DBC. The sources and fate of DBC in both rivers and ocean, however, is not well known. In this study, we present radiocarbon (14C) and stable carbon isotope (13C) measurements of DBC in several large rivers in China, and in coastal and open ocean waters. DBC was concentrated using solid phase extraction (SPE) method and quantified by chemothermal oxidation (CTO) method. Concentrations of DBC varied in rivers depending on the drainage basin of the river and accounted for 3.7-7.6% of the riverine DOC pool. DBC was slightly lower, accounted for 2.9-5.9% of DOC in coastal and open oceans. Carbon isotope results indicate that DBC δ13C values were all slightly enriched (by 2-3‰) than the values of DOC in both rivers and ocean. The DBC Δ14C values varied largely in rivers and the values were significantly higher than DOC Δ14C values in rivers but similar to DOC Δ14C values in the ocean. Using a two-end member isotope mass balance model, we calculated that the most DBC (80%) with relatively young 14C ages in the rivers was derived from biomass burning. Laboratory incubation studies also found that DBC released from recent charcoal was able to be utilized by bacteria, supporting the speculation that river transported DOC could be decomposed during estuaries mixing. Our study suggests that DBC is cycled in the same time scales with the DOC pool in the ocean and no extremely older DBC was identified as reported in other studies previously.

[en] Using a 48.6 GeV polarized electron beam scattering off a polarized ³He target at Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre (SLAC), they measured the neutron spin structure function g₁ⁿ over kinematic(x) ranging 0.014 < x <0.7 and 1 < Q² < 17GeV². The measurement gave the integral result over the neutron spin structure function ∫_0.014^0.7 g₁ⁿ(x)dx = -0.036 ± 0.004(stat) ± 0.005(syst) at an average Q² = 5GeV². Along with the proton results from SLAC E143 experiment (0.03 < x) and SMC experiment (0.014 < x < 0.03), they find the Bjorken sum rule appears to be largely saturated by the data integrated down to x of 0.014. However, they observe relatively large values for g₁ⁿ at low x. The result calls into question the usual methods (Regge theory) for extrapolating to x = 0 to find the full neutron integral ∫₀^t g₁ⁿ(x) dx, needed for testing the Quark-Parton Model (QMP)

[en] The ethanolic extracts of some Chinese traditional herb drugs, reported by Hong-Fu Wang et al. in China, could inhibit platelet aggregation as well as protect against radiation damage in mice, rat and rabbits. The inhibitory effects of the extracts of five Chinese drugs on the rate of platelet aggregation were observed in both in vitro and in vivo tests, averaging 23--53% in vitro and 46--69% in vivo. Antiradiation tests on mice vs. 7.5--8.0 Gy of γ-radiation, using the herb drug extracts as protective agents, showed increasing survival rates by 8--50%. Based on Hong-Fu Wang's report, a search for the active constituents of these herb drugs in inhibiting platelet aggregation and protecting animals against radiation damage was started. In this research program, a Chinese traditional drug, Rhizoma Chuanxiong (rhizome of Ligusticum chuanxiong Hort.) was chosen. Three types of chemicals present in Rhizoma Chuanxiong, appeared promising for testing: 1-(5-hydroxymethyl-2-furyl)-9H-pyrido-(3,4-b)indole, 4-hydroxyl-3-butylidenephthalide and 5-hydroxyl-3-butylidenephthalide, and 4-hydroxyl-3-methoxycinnamyl 4-hydroxyl-3-methoxycinnamate. A total of 56 compounds of these derivatives has been synthesized and 30 were synthesized for the first time. The structure elucidation of these compounds was based on IR, ¹H NMR and elemental analysis. From this research program, a very mild dehydrogenation method was developed. It was by using 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyanobenzoquinone in acetonitrile at ice bath temperature to dehydrogenate 1-(5-hydroxymethyl-2-furyl)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-9H-pyrido-(3,4-b)indole into 1-(5-hydroxymethyl-2-furyl)-9H-pyrido-(3,4-b)indole. This project showed for the first time that harmanoid alkaloids have the activity of inhibition of plate aggregation by 4 to 23 times that of aspirin. These results aid in establishing a relation between radiation protection in animals and prevention of platelet hyperaggregation

[en] SMR is one of the hot research and development direction because of its high safety, low initial investment and multi-function characteristics. With the support of the Chinese government, a number of Chinese nuclear power groups are developing SMR including CAP200, ACP100, NHR200-II and ACPR50 which advantages have been verified. In future, regulatory standards, modular construction and economic upgrading of SMR will still be hot research directions in China.

[en] As a typical drought-prone region, the Yellow River basin (YRB) has long been over exploited with highly concentrated population and farmland, but with very limited resources. The water resources is one of the key constraints of the sustainable development of this region. However, unfortunately, due to both human activities and climate change, the precipitation of this basin has been found continuously decreased during last several decades, while the streamflow showed a significant decreasing trend as well. As a result, the lack of the availability of the water resources in the YRB is increasingly severe. It is of importance to predict the future water resources sustainability under climate change. According to the US EPA (2007) classification, the flow condition can be categorized using the flow duration curve, which is plotted a gauging station representing streamflow values from high to low against the percentage of time these values are either equalled or exceeded, where 60% to 90% means dry conditions, and 90% to 100% for low flows. The flow duration curve (FDC) is always computed empirically, and Singh et al. (2014a, b) first introduced the entropy theory to estimate the FDC, where they defined the entropy parameter for each station, so that the FDC for different recurrence intervals can be easily predicted. The main advantages of the use of the entropy theory for computing the FDC are: (1) the parameters are based on observations and no fitting is needed; (2) the theory permits a probabilistic characterization of the flow duration curve. To that end, the entropy-based FDC curve will be applied to estimate the flow condition of the Yellow River basin and to predict the future condition based on the entropy parameter under climate change scenarios.

[en] An investigation is carried out to understand hydrothermal effects on locally delaminated buckling near the surface of a cylindrical laminated shell. The delamination shape is considered as a rectangle. The sub-laminated shell is taken as monolayer or multilayer. The stacking sequence of sub-layers may be asymmetric. The effect of non-linear buckling for local delamination of cylindrical laminated shells is obtained by considering transverse displacements of the sub-laminated shell. The Young's modulus and the thermal and humidity expansion coefficients of the material are treated as functions of temperature change in base laminated shells. The critical strains of cylindrical laminated shells with various hydrothermal environments, different stacking sequences and different radii of the cylindrical laminated shells are obtained by means of the energy principle. From example calculations, it is found that the non-linear solution of critical buckling for local delamination near the surface of a laminated cylindrical shell under a hydrothermal environment gives a lower value than that from linear analysis

[en] In the past decade, collaborations between China and European Union have been rapidly expanding. Hitherto, however, little research has been carried out to assess implementation and impacts of such collaborations. This paper evaluates the collaboration performance between China and the EU28 concerning major research and innovation priorities. To shed light on the initiatives of collaborations, corresponding authors are detected and classified into three categories, Chinese local, Chinese abroad, and non-Chinese. In order to foster more profitable collaboration for both parties and to formulate options for international policy on research and innovation cooperation between the European Union and China, this paper presents an in-depth analysis of the scientific collaborations focusing on the initiatives and benefits of the collaborations. (Author)

[en] The domain formation and structures in a ferroelectric tetragonal model system in which the dipole-dipole interaction and gradient domain wall energy are taken into account is studied using Monte-Carlo method. It is revealed that the 90 deg. -domain walls with preferred head-to-tail dipole alignment coexist with the 180 deg. -walls in the domain configuration. The dipole-alignment patterns at various temperatures and system parameters are investigated, indicating clearly the suppression in magnitude of dipoles on the domain walls in order to lower the system free energy. The effect of temperature and gradient wall energy on the hysteresis loop is also simulated

[en] We present the expressions of nonlinear effective susceptibilities of antiferromagnetic/nonmagnetic superlattices with an effective-medium method, and then on this basis investigate nonlinear dispersion properties of antiferromagnetic polaritons in the superlattices. In the geometry used in the paper, the y-axis is normal to the interface, and the z-axis is pointed along the anisotropy axis. The theoretical analysis and numerical calculations show: (i) The nonlinearity has no contributions to the waves traveling along the three axes, and to the waves in the x-y plane. (ii) The nonlinear shift in wave number is either upward or downward, depending on the mode frequency larger or less than the resonance frequency, for the wave traveling along the other directions