Development of a Transient Magnetic Field Sensor Based on Digital Integration and Frequency Equalization.

Transient magnetic field sensors are used in various electromagnetic environment measurement scenarios. In this paper, a novel magnetic field sensor based on a digital integrator was developed. The antenna was a small B-DOT loop. It was designed optimally for the simulation. The magnetic field signal was digitally integrated with the improved Al-Alaoui algorithm, resulting in less integration error. To compensate for the bandwidth loss of the optical fiber system, we specially designed an FIR (finite impulse response) filter for frequency compensation. The circuit was described, and the transimpedance amplifier was specially designed to ensure the low noise characteristic of the receiver. The sensitivity of the sensor was calibrated at 68.2 A·m-1/mV, the dynamic range was 50 dB (1-300 kA/m), the linear correlation coefficient was 0.96, and the bandwidth was greater than 100 MHz. It was tested and verified under the action of an A-type lightning current. The sensor exhibited high-precision performance and flat amplitude-frequency characteristics. Therefore, it is suitable for lightning positioning, partial discharge testing, electromagnetic compatibility management, and other applications.

Effect of pulsed millisecond current magnetic field on the proliferation of C6 rat glioma cells.

In recent years, using electromagnetic fields as a targeted therapy for tumors has become a new idea. This paper aims to study the response of rat glioma cells (C6) when the external electromagnetic field parameters change and to obtain a complete working range of magnetic field parameters. Four-day, 4-h daily millisecond magnetic field exposure experiments were performed with C6 cells. The peak values of magnetic field intensity were 260 mT, 90 mT, 19 mT and 6 mT. Each day after exposure, cell morphology and cell viability assay (MTT method) were measured. The response of C6 cells shows a significant window effect and time cumulative effect on the cell, and it is non-destructive. The working inhibited magnetic field range of magnetic field increase rate dB/dt (T/s) is [34, 119.5] and [166.75, 527.25], the magnetic field amplitude B (mT) is [6, 260], the magnetic field integral Bt (mT·s) is [0.1649, 0.8085] and the energy integral B2t (mT2·s) is [2.317, 53.328]. Our findings provide the theoretical and experimental basis for clinical applications of electromagnetic fields.

Recent ecological transitions in China: greening, browning, and influential factors.

Ecological conservation and restoration are necessary to mitigate environmental degradation problems. China has taken great efforts in such actions. To understand the ecological transition during 2000-2010 in China, this study analysed trends in vegetation change using remote sensing and linear regression. Climate and socioeconomic factors were included to screen the driving forces for vegetation change using correlation or comparative analyses. Our results indicated that China experienced both vegetation greening (restoration) and browning (degradation) with great spatial heterogeneity. Socioeconomic factors, such as human populations and economic production, were the most significant factors for vegetation change. Nature reserves have contributed slightly to the deceleration of vegetation browning and the promotion of greening; however, a large-scale conservation approach beyond nature reserves was more effective. The effectiveness of the Three-North Shelter Forest Program lay between the two above approaches. The findings of this study highlighted that vegetation trend detection is a practical approach for large-scale ecological transition assessments, which can inform decision-making that promotes vegetation greening via proper socioeconomic development and ecosystem management.

Improving the expression of recombinant proteins in E. coli BL21 (DE3) under acetate stress: an alkaline pH shift approach.

Excess acetate has long been an issue for the production of recombinant proteins in E. coli cells. Recently, improvements in acetate tolerance have been achieved through the use of genetic strategies and medium supplementation with certain amino acids and pyrimidines. The aim of our study was to evaluate an alternative to improve the acetate tolerance of E. coli BL21 (DE3), a popular strain used to express recombinant proteins. In this work we reported the cultivation of BL21 (DE3) in complex media containing acetate at high concentrations. In the presence of 300 mM acetate, compared with pH 6.5, pH 7.5 improved cell growth by approximately 71%, reduced intracellular acetate by approximately 50%, and restored the expression of glutathione S-transferase (GST), green fluorescent protein (GFP) and cytochrome P450 monooxygenase (CYP). Further experiments showed that alkaline pHs up to 8.5 had little inhibition in the expression of GST, GFP and CYP. In addition, the detrimental effect of acetate on the reduction of 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) by the cell membrane, an index of cellular metabolic capacity, was substantially alleviated by a shift to alkaline pH values of 7.5-8.0. Thus, we suggest an approach of cultivating E. coli BL21 (DE3) at pH 8.0 ± 0.5 to minimize the effects caused by acetate stress. The proposed strategy of an alkaline pH shift is a simple approach to solving similar bioprocessing problems in the production of biofuels and biochemicals from sugars.

Comparison of four spatial interpolation methods for estimating soil moisture in a complex terrain catchment.

Many spatial interpolation methods perform well for gentle terrains when producing spatially continuous surfaces based on ground point data. However, few interpolation methods perform satisfactorily for complex terrains. Our objective in the present study was to analyze the suitability of several popular interpolation methods for complex terrains and propose an optimal method. A data set of 153 soil water profiles (1 m) from the semiarid hilly gully Loess Plateau of China was used, generated under a wide range of land use types, vegetation types and topographic positions. Four spatial interpolation methods, including ordinary kriging, inverse distance weighting, linear regression and regression kriging were used for modeling, randomly partitioning the data set into 2/3 for model fit and 1/3 for independent testing. The performance of each method was assessed quantitatively in terms of mean-absolute-percentage-error, root-mean-square-error, and goodness-of-prediction statistic. The results showed that the prediction accuracy differed significantly between each method in complex terrain. The ordinary kriging and inverse distance weighted methods performed poorly due to the poor spatial autocorrelation of soil moisture at small catchment scale with complex terrain, where the environmental impact factors were discontinuous in space. The linear regression model was much more suitable to the complex terrain than the former two distance-based methods, but the predicted soil moisture changed too sharply near the boundary of the land use types and junction of the sunny (southern) and shady (northern) slopes, which was inconsistent with reality because soil moisture should change gradually in short distance due to its mobility in soil. The most optimal interpolation method in this study for the complex terrain was the hybrid regression kriging, which produced a detailed, reasonable prediction map with better accuracy and prediction effectiveness.