| 1. |
- Fang, Zhiwei, et al.
(författare)
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Structural stability and aqueous durability of Cs incorporation into BaAl2Ti6O16 hollandite
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Nuclear Materials. - : Elsevier BV. - 0022-3115 .- 1873-4820. ; 565, s. 153716-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Hollandite ceramics are well-recognized as a promising host for immobilizing radioactive cesium. In the present paper, the [BaxCsy][(Al3+,Ti3+)(2x +y)Ti-8-2x-y(4+)]O-16 (0.4 <= x, y <= 0.8) ceramics were fabricated to in-vestigate the effect of incorporated Cs on structural stability and durability of (Ba,Cs)(Al,Ti)(8)O-16 ceramics with Cs-incorporated. It was found that the sintered samples at 1250 degrees C show a pure hollandite phase with tetragonal structure (I4/m) and high Cs retention. Moreover, the synthesized (Ba,Cs)(Al,Ti)(8)O-16 ceramics exhibit an excellent aqueous stability and the normalized Cs release rate is 2.82 (+/- 0.27) x10(-3) g m(-2) d(-1) after 28 days. All these results reveal that (Ba,Cs)(Al,Ti)(8)O-16 is a promising candidate as a Cs-waste form.
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| 2. |
- Kanoni, Stavroula, et al.
(författare)
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Implicating genes, pleiotropy, and sexual dimorphism at blood lipid loci through multi-ancestry meta-analysis.
- 2022
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Ingår i: Genome biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1474-760X .- 1465-6906 .- 1474-7596. ; 23:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Genetic variants within nearly 1000 loci are known to contribute to modulation of blood lipid levels. However, the biological pathways underlying these associations are frequently unknown, limiting understanding of these findings and hindering downstream translational efforts such as drug target discovery.To expand our understanding of the underlying biological pathways and mechanisms controlling blood lipid levels, we leverage a large multi-ancestry meta-analysis (N = 1,654,960) of blood lipids to prioritize putative causal genes for 2286 lipid associations using six gene prediction approaches. Using phenome-wide association (PheWAS) scans, we identify relationships of genetically predicted lipid levels to other diseases and conditions. We confirm known pleiotropic associations with cardiovascular phenotypes and determine novel associations, notably with cholelithiasis risk. We perform sex-stratified GWAS meta-analysis of lipid levels and show that 3-5% of autosomal lipid-associated loci demonstrate sex-biased effects. Finally, we report 21 novel lipid loci identified on the X chromosome. Many of the sex-biased autosomal and X chromosome lipid loci show pleiotropic associations with sex hormones, emphasizing the role of hormone regulation in lipid metabolism.Taken together, our findings provide insights into the biological mechanisms through which associated variants lead to altered lipid levels and potentially cardiovascular disease risk.
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| 3. |
- Zhao, Yanyan, et al.
(författare)
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A 30,000-km journey by Apus apus pekinensis tracks arid lands between northern China and south-western Africa
- 2022
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Ingår i: Movement Ecology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2051-3933. ; 10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: As a widely distributed and aerial migratory bird, the Common Swift (Apus apus) flies over a wide geographic range in Eurasia and Africa during migration. Although some studies have revealed the migration routes and phenology of European populations, A. a. apus (from hereon the nominate apus), the route used by its East Asian counterpart A. a. pekinensis (from hereon pekinensis) remained a mystery. Methods: Using light level geolocators, we studied the migration of adult pekinensis breeding in Beijing from 2014 to 2018, and analysed full annual tracks obtained from 25 individuals. In addition, we used the mean monthly precipitation to assess the seasonal variations in humidity for the distribution ranges of the nominate apus and pekinensis. This environmental variable is considered to be critically relevant to their migratory phenology and food resource abundance. Results: Our results show that the swifts perform a round-trip journey of ca 30,000 km each year, representing a detour of 26% in autumn and 15% in spring compared to the shortest route between the breeding site in Beijing and wintering areas in semi-arid south-western Africa. Compared to the nominate apus, pekinensis experiences drier conditions for longer periods of time. Remarkably, individuals from our study population tracked arid habitat along the entire migration corridor leading from a breeding site in Beijing to at least central Africa. In Africa, they explored more arid habitats during non-breeding than the nominate apus. Conclusions: The migration route followed by pekinensis breeding in Beijing might suggest an adaptation to semi-arid habitat and dry climatic zones during non-breeding periods, and provides a piece of correlative evidence indicating the historical range expansion of the subspecies. This study highlights that the Common Swift may prove invaluable as a model species for studies of migration route formation and population divergence.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Fang, K., et al.
(författare)
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Wind speed reconstruction from a tree-ring difference index in northeastern Inner Mongolia
- 2022
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Ingår i: Dendrochronologia. - : Elsevier BV. - 1125-7865. ; 72
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The lack of instrumental wind speed data beyond the industrial era limits our ability to evaluate the contributions of natural versus anthropogenic processes on long-term changes in wind speed. It is thus desirable to find proxies for historical changes in wind speed. Persistent and strong winds can cause compression wood composed of wider and denser rings in conifer trees at leeward sides. This work hypothesizes that the asymmetric wind impact on tree radial growth provides information about wind speed changes. To test the hypothesis, we developed a Tree-Ring Difference Index (TRDI) representing the differences between tree ring widths at the windward and leeward sides. Thirty-four trees subjected to strong and persistent winds in a Picea mongolica forest in northeastern Inner Mongolia were analyzed. The TRDI based on 124 cores correlates significantly with the maximum wind speeds recorded from May to August, indicating that this proxy can be used for wind speed reconstruction. Our reconstruction reveals long-term changes in wind speed including an upward trend from 1940 to 1954, followed by continually decreasing wind speeds from 1955 to 1990 and increasing values from 1991 to 2010. The reconstructed wind speeds include strong multi-decadal variability and significant correlations with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). © 2022 Elsevier GmbH
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| 6. |
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Fieldwork Education in Social Work as One Way of Building Bridges between China and Europe : In Rajendra Baikady, Sajid S.M., Varoshini Nadesan, and M. Rezaul Islam (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Field Work Education in Social Work
- 2022
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Routledge Handbook of Field Work Education in Social Work is a welcome addition to the lit- erature on social work education and comparative research. It offers a wealth of contributions on field education across four continents.The book comes at a time of increased interest in international social work and in learning from others. It is also a time when educators in diverse contexts are struggling to provide quality field education for students, as field education across the globe is facing both old and new challenges. As the editors point out early in their introduction, field education is an essential part of the preparation of social workers; indeed, it is now sometimes referred to by the US Council on Social Work Education and others as the ‘signature pedagogy’ of the field. From the earliest days, educators have recognised that practical experience must accompany academic learning to prepare social work practitioners.This differentiates a profession from a purely academic subject. A review of the history of social work education bears this out. Between 1950 and 1972, the United Nations (UN) conducted five world surveys of social work education. In the very first of these, issues and variations in ‘practical training’ were dis- cussed (UN, 1950). Supervision, the need to integrate theory and practice, and the balance between observation and learning by doing were highlighted in the overview and in country summaries.The International Association of Schools of Social Work continued the global survey of educational programmes,issuing the World Guide to SocialWork Education in 1984.The crite- ria for inclusion as a social work programme were few in number and quite modest. It clearly stated, however, that ‘The course of study should include theoretical study as well as substantial continuing field practicum with an arrangement for appropriate instruction in both class and field’ (p. ix).This volume profiled social work programs in 61 countries across six continents, an expansion from the 46 countries listed in the 1950 UN publication. In 2004, the International Association of Schools of Social Work and the International Federation of Social Workers issued the first ever Global Standards for the Education and Training of the Social Work Profession. The standards were revised in 2020 (IASSW/IFSW, 2020). Both versions include lengthy sections on field education under curricula and state that field education must ‘be sufficient in duration and complexity of tasks and learning opportunities to ensure that students are prepared for professional practice’ (IASSW/IFSW, 2020, p. 13). Other standards include pro- viding qualified supervision, training for field instructors, a field manual with clear policies, and methods of evaluating students and field settings. New to the 2020 version is an aspirational stand- ard that programmes should ‘Create practice placement opportunities that correspond to at least 25% of the overall education activity within the courses (counted in either credits, days, or hours)’ (p. 14).This is clearly an effort to reduce the variability in attention paid to the field component. Organising and delivering quality field education continues to be a challenge for schools of social work. Many of the issues identified 70 years ago continue, including providing regular, xxvii Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 20:32 15 Jun 2022; For: 9781032164946, Prelims, 10.4324/9781032164946 Foreword professionally competent supervision and the need to help students integrate their classwork with field education. Over the past three decades, social work has expanded to numerous new locales,most notably to the countries of the former Soviet Union and China.The 2020 world census of social work education identified more than 3,500 programs in 159 countries (IASSW, 2021). In some places, social work is a completely new subject, and educators have had to initiate placements in areas without trained supervisors or even settings that defined them- selves as social work settings (Healy & Thomas, 2021). In other countries, including such diverse places as Jamaica and Ethiopia, expansion in the number of schools of social work and increases in the number of students enrolled has outpaced the availability of suitable field placements (Kebede, 2019). Mentoring students into the profession is less likely to occur if experienced social work supervision is missing. The Routledge Handbook of Field Work Education in Social Work includes overviews of field education and treatment of special subjects in 26 countries ranging from the United Kingdom to China, Slovenia,Turkey, Canada, and New Zealand. Several chapters provide student perspec- tives on their learning in the field. Special topics addressed include the experiences of indig- enous students in field placement and considerations for ensuring that international placements are optimally designed and supported. Reflexivity as a component of learning and way of inte- grating learning is addressed by several authors. Finally, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is covered in three chapters at the end of the volume. Field education faced disruptions and unusual challenges, in terms of the needs and demands of service users, threats to the health of students and field instructors, and widespread closures of in-person services. Learning from these experiences will inform education in future emergencies. In their conclusion, the editors lament that the topic of technology is not adequately addressed in the present book. Presumably, the expansion of virtual service delivery during the pandemic will offer lessons for future considera- tion of technologies in field education. In concluding the book, the editors remind readers that ‘Competency of students and graduates from a school of social work largely depends on the quality of the field education agency, availability of faculty support, competent supervisors, and expertise in introducing an innovative fieldwork practicum’. In the United States, and perhaps other contexts, increased pressures for research and publication have diminished the involvement of full-time faculty in field liaison and engagement, widening the divide between classroom instruction and field learning and severing what was, in earlier times, a close collaboration between academia and the field. At the same time, neoliberal pressures push agencies to meet higher efficiency stand- ards through increased caseloads and outputs.This leaves less time for field instruction and is resulting in fewer available placements for the growing social work student population.These trends may heighten the stresses on the dominant model of field education for social work and call out for creative solutions. Comparative study and increased sharing across borders can help in developing new models.This volume is an excellent start and a most welcome addition to the literature. Lynne M. Healy, MSW, PhD Board ofTrustees Distinguished Professor Emerita University of Connecticut School of Social Work, USA
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| 7. |
- Golub, Malgorzata, et al.
(författare)
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A framework for ensemble modelling of climate change impacts on lakes worldwide : the ISIMIP Lake Sector
- 2022
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Ingår i: Geoscientific Model Development. - : Copernicus Publications. - 1991-959X .- 1991-9603. ; 15:11, s. 4597-4623
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Empirical evidence demonstrates that lakes and reservoirs are warming across the globe. Consequently, there is an increased need to project future changes in lake thermal structure and resulting changes in lake biogeochemistry in order to plan for the likely impacts. Previous studies of the impacts of climate change on lakes have often relied on a single model forced with limited scenario-driven projections of future climate for a relatively small number of lakes. As a result, our understanding of the effects of climate change on lakes is fragmentary, based on scattered studies using different data sources and modelling protocols, and mainly focused on individual lakes or lake regions. This has precluded identification of the main impacts of climate change on lakes at global and regional scales and has likely contributed to the lack of lake water quality considerations in policy-relevant documents, such as the Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Here, we describe a simulation protocol developed by the Lake Sector of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP) for simulating climate change impacts on lakes using an ensemble of lake models and climate change scenarios for ISIMIP phases 2 and 3. The protocol prescribes lake simulations driven by climate forcing from gridded observations and different Earth system models under various representative greenhouse gas concentration pathways (RCPs), all consistently bias-corrected on a 0.5 degrees x 0.5 degrees global grid. In ISIMIP phase 2, 11 lake models were forced with these data to project the thermal structure of 62 well-studied lakes where data were available for calibration under historical conditions, and using uncalibrated models for 17 500 lakes defined for all global grid cells containing lakes. In ISIMIP phase 3, this approach was expanded to consider more lakes, more models, and more processes. The ISIMIP Lake Sector is the largest international effort to project future water temperature, thermal structure, and ice phenology of lakes at local and global scales and paves the way for future simulations of the impacts of climate change on water quality and biogeochemistry in lakes.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Li, Jingwen, et al.
(författare)
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Emerging Food Packaging Applications of Cellulose Nanocomposites : A Review
- 2022
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Ingår i: Polymers. - : MDPI AG. - 2073-4360. ; 14:19
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cellulose is the most abundant biopolymer on Earth, which is synthesized by plants, bacteria, and animals, with source-dependent properties. Cellulose containing beta-1,4-linked D-glucoses further assembles into hierarchical structures in microfibrils, which can be processed to nanocellulose with length or width in the nanoscale after a variety of pretreatments including enzymatic hydrolysis, TEMPO-oxidation, and carboxymethylation. Nanocellulose can be mainly categorized into cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) produced by acid hydrolysis, cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) prepared by refining, homogenization, microfluidization, sonification, ball milling, and the aqueous counter collision (ACC) method, and bacterial cellulose (BC) biosynthesized by the Acetobacter species. Due to nontoxicity, good biodegradability and biocompatibility, high aspect ratio, low thermal expansion coefficient, excellent mechanical strength, and unique optical properties, nanocellulose is utilized to develop various cellulose nanocomposites through solution casting, Layer-by-Layer (LBL) assembly, extrusion, coating, gel-forming, spray drying, electrostatic spinning, adsorption, nanoemulsion, and other techniques, and has been widely used as food packaging material with excellent barrier and mechanical properties, antibacterial activity, and stimuli-responsive performance to improve the food quality and shelf life. Under the driving force of the increasing green food packaging market, nanocellulose production has gradually developed from lab-scale to pilot- or even industrial-scale, mainly in Europe, Africa, and Asia, though developing cost-effective preparation techniques and precisely tuning the physicochemical properties are key to the commercialization. We expect this review to summarise the recent literature in the nanocellulose-based food packaging field and provide the readers with the state-of-the-art of this research area.
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| 10. |
- Liu, Wei, et al.
(författare)
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Coherent dynamics of multi-spin V-B(-) center in hexagonal boron nitride
- 2022
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Nature Portfolio. - 2041-1723. ; 13:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has recently been demonstrated to contain optically polarized and detected electron spins that can be utilized for implementing qubits and quantum sensors in nanolayered-devices. Understanding the coherent dynamics ofmicrowave driven spins in hBN is of crucial importance for advancing these emerging new technologies. Here, we demonstrate and study the Rabi oscillation and related phenomena of a negatively charged boron vacancy (V-B(-)) spin ensemble in hBN. We report on different dynamics of the V-B(-) spins at weak and strong magnetic fields. In the former case the defect behaves like a single electron spin system, while in the latter case it behaves like a multi-spin system exhibiting multiple-frequency dynamical oscillation as beat in the Ramsey fringes. We also carry out theoretical simulations for the spin dynamics of V-B(-) and reveal that the nuclear spins can be driven via the strong electron nuclear coupling existing in V-B(-) center, which can be modulated by the magnetic field and microwave field.
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