The Impact of Air Pollution on the Protection of World Cultural Heritage in China.

The damage of air pollution to cultural heritage is widely known. However, the quantitative effects still need to be explored at a holistic level. Different from existing research which focuses on the "model calculation" methods, this paper uses an econometric approach to assess the overall impact of air pollution on the sustainable protection of world cultural heritage in China. Based on the data of the annual monitoring report from 2014 to 2020 released by the China World Cultural Heritage Monitoring Platform, this paper uses the thermal inversion as an instrument variable of air pollution to estimate the overall effects of air pollution on all world cultural heritage sites in China. The results indicate that almost all the air pollutants (except for CO) have significantly negative effects on heritage. The damaging effects of gaseous pollutants including SO2, NO2 and O3 is greater than that of particulate pollutants such as PM2.5 and PM10. Rainfall can exacerbate the worsening effects of gaseous pollutants, but will mitigate the negative effects of particulate pollutants; the windy weather may weaken the negative impact. In addition, environmental regulations from the local government can also alleviate the negative influence of air pollution on heritage protection. This research can provide a more comprehensive environmental prevention policy reference for the protection of world cultural heritage.

Manure amendment increased the abundance of methanogens and methanotrophs but suppressed the type I methanotrophs in rice paddies.

Methane (CH4) emission is the consequence of CH4 production and consumption performed by methanogens and methanotrophs, respectively. Fertilization is an important factor that regulates the behavior of methanogens and methanotrophs; however, the effect of manure and rice straw addition combined with inorganic fertilizers on these communities is not well understood. This study aimed to explore how manure and rice straw amendments together with inorganic fertilizers influenced the methanogenic and methanotrophic communities in a 31-year fertilized rice paddy. Manure amendment significantly increased the abundance of mcrA and pmoA genes by 61.2% and 63.3% compared with the unfertilized control, whereas inorganic NPK fertilization alone or rice straw addition did not affect their abundances. Manure and rice straw amendments greatly decreased the Shannon index and ACE index of the methanogenic communities, whereas inorganic NPK fertilization alone increased the ACE index of the methanotrophic communities compared with the unfertilized control. Methanosarcinaceae and Methylococcaceae dominated at the family level, representing 23.1-35.0% and 48.7-67.2% of the total reads, for the methanogenic and methanotrophic communities, respectively. Application of manure together with inorganic fertilizers suppressed the Methanocellales methanogens and the type I methanotrophs (Methylococcus and Methylobacter). Fertilization greatly altered the community structure of methanogens and methanotrophs, and manure addition had more apparent effects than rice straw. Moreover, total nitrogen, soil organic carbon, available phosphorus, and available potassium correlated significantly to the abundance, composition, and community structure of methanogens and methanotrophs. In conclusion, our study revealed that long-term manure amendment in combination with inorganic fertilizers significantly increased the abundance of methanogens and methanotrophs, but suppressed the type I methanotrophs in rice paddies.

Experimental Research and Analysis on Fatigue Life of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) Tendons.

The fatigue life of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) tendons was studied in this paper. A new wedge-type anchorage system was applied to the fatigue test of CFRP tendons and demonstrated an excellent fatigue resistance. In the test and analytical data, the fatigue stress ranged from 200 MPa to 800 MPa, and maximum stresses from 0.37 to 1.0 fu (fu = ultimate tensile strength of CFRP tendons) were determined. The main work and results were that the stress range and stress level (maximum stress) were two key parameters affecting the fatigue life of CFRP tendons. A bilinear equation and a linear equation considering the fatigue life of CFRP tendons jointly affected by the stress range and the maximum stress were established. The error of predicted results and test results was 0.038 and 0.083, respectively, both representing good prediction accuracy. The predicted results of Whitney's method showed that, at a 95% confidence level, when the stress range was 200 MPa, 400 MPa, and 600 MPa, the maximum stress limit of CFRP tendons, which were not broken in a fatigue test of 2 million times, was 63.9% fu, 53.0% fu, and 36.8% fu, respectively.

In-orbit operation of an atomic clock based on laser-cooled 87Rb atoms.

Atomic clocks based on laser-cooled atoms are widely used as primary frequency standards. Deploying such cold atom clocks (CACs) in space is foreseen to have many applications. Here we present tests of a CAC operating in space. In orbital microgravity, the atoms are cooled, trapped, launched, and finally detected after being interrogated by a microwave field using the Ramsey method. Perturbing influences from the orbital environment on the atoms such as varying magnetic fields and the passage of the spacecraft through Earth's radiation belt are also controlled and mitigated. With appropriate parameters settings, closed-loop locking of the CAC is realized in orbit and an estimated short-term frequency stability close to 3.0 × 10-13τ-1/2 has been attained. The demonstration of the long-term operation of cold atom clock in orbit opens possibility on the applications of space-based cold atom sensors.

[Leaching behavior of heavy metal elements in lead-free solders].

Leaching behavior of heavy metal elements from Sn-3.5 Ag-0.5 Cu, Sn-3.5 Ag, Sn-0.5 Cu lead-free solders and their joints were investigated in typical acid, alkaline and saline corrosion solutions. It is found that for solder alloys, significant leaching of Sn was observed in NaCl saline solution, about two orders of magnitude higher than that in acid and alkaline solution. However, in the case of solder joints, more leaching of Sn was observed in acid solution from Sn-3.5 Ag/Cu and Sn-0.5 Cu/Cu joints, and in NaOH alkaline solution for Sn-3.5 Ag - 0.5 Cu joint.