Heat island intensities over Brihan Mumbai on a cold winter and hot summer night

A mobile temperature survey of Brihan Mumbai (Greater Bombay) was undertaken on 16 January 1997 which incidentally turned out to be the coldest winter night. Heat islands were found well inside the city, away from the coastal boundary, within a distinct tongue of warm air splitting in three branches roughly along the three sub- urban railway tracks. The finding of the study were in sharp contrast with similar studies conducted during the early seventies by Daniel and Krishnamurthy (1973) and later by Mukherjee and Daniel (1976). They found a remarkable influence of sea on the horizontal temperature distribution in comparison to other factors of urbanisation and noticed the heat island over Malabar Hill, Girgaurn and Cuffe Parade area. The survey conducted after a span of twenty-two years, showed that the temperature distribution in the city and suburbs has been modified significantly and that the effect of urbanisation has overtaken the effect of maritime influence in the formation and maintenance of heat islands. Another mobile temperature survey was conducted during the early hours of 11 May 1997 on the same lines as survey conducted on 16 January 1997, to confirm the findings of earlier survey and to assess seasonal changes in the intensities of heat island. This later survey showed similar pattern of horizontal temperature distribution, though the intensity of heat island observed was only 5.5° C as compared to 11.8° C observed during winter.

A Study on Hair Art with the Motif of Winter Flowers

The purpose of this study is to increase the artistic value of hair art. And it is about providing basic data and expanding contributions to follow-up research. Hair art works reinterpret the inner beauty of winter flowers that bloom in full bloom in the cold winter. The research method collected prior studies and references based on winter flowers. Also, we selected four types of winter flowers and analyzed their shapes and colors. I created 4 pieces of hair art. As a result, the colorful color of work 1 increased the aesthetic effect due to its high chroma. Works 2 expresses the elegance of irregularly blooming petals on a single stalk. In work 3, warm yellow flowers are soft and cozy on a scrawny tree. The flower in work 4 is seductive navy purple. And the large and small flowers were placed stably with increased concentration. In conclusion, the possibility of creating hair art from a new perspective was confirmed by applying several colors with white wigs. In future research, we look forward to the possibility of combining hair art with nature motifs and re-lighting it with formative art to satisfy its value.

Can the invasive ambrosia beetle Xylosandrus germanus withstand an unusually cold winter in the West Carpathian forest in Central Europe?

The capability of a non-native species to withstand adverse weather is indicative of its establishment in a novel area. An unusually cold winter of 2016/2017 that occurred in the West Carpathians of Slovakia and other regions within Europe provided an opportunity to indirectly assess survival of the invasive ambrosia beetle Xylosandrus germanus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Scolytinae). We compared trap captures of this species in the year preceding and succeeding the respective cold winter. Ethanol-baited traps were deployed in 24 oak dominated forest stands within the southern and central area from April to August 2016, and again from April to August 2017 to encompass the seasonal flight activity of X. germanus and to get acquainted with temporal changes in the abundance of this species in these two distant areas. Dispersing X. germanus were recorded in all surveyed stands before and after the aforementioned cold winter. Their total seasonal trap captures were lower in the southern area following low winter temperatures, but remained similar in the central area. Our results suggest that X. germanus can withstand adverse winter weather in oak dominated forests of the West Carpathians within altitudes of 171 and 450 m asl. It is likely that minimum winter temperatures will not reduce the establishment or further spread of this successful invader in forests in Central Europe.

Research on Energy-Saving Optimization of Rural Houses in Specific Regions Based on Internet of Things

With the expansion of social energy use, the optimization of residential energy conservation has become urgent and important. The research on rural housing in areas with hot summers and cold winters started late and is relatively backward in terms of housing energy saving, which greatly hinders the sustainable development of rural areas. The application of the Internet of Things technology helps to provide a stable technical guarantee for energy-saving optimization. Therefore, this paper takes the energy-saving optimization design of rural houses in hot summer and cold winter areas based on the Internet of Things technology as the research theme. This article first takes H rural area as the research object and analyzes the climatic conditions of the place, that is, the typical characteristics of hot summer and cold winter. Then, the intelligent temperature acquisition system is designed, and the working process and main hardware modules of the system are introduced. This text combines GPRS and Internet of Things technology, designs the temperature control system, and carries on the test to the system operation effect. The test results show that during the heating period in January, before and after the temperature control system controls the room temperature, the maximum relative error between the set temperature value and the actual temperature value is 0.49 and 0.27, respectively. It can be seen that the intelligent temperature energy-saving control system can collect the indoor temperature in real time and can well control the heating equipment.

Willingness to Pay for Irrigation Services in the Cold Winter Deserts of Uzbekistan

Irrigation facilities in the cold winter deserts (CWDs) of Uzbekistan are very traditional and poorly managed, resulting in low water use efficiency and low productivity. Improving the irrigation facilities in these deserts is a key priority for the country. This study intended to contribute towards the development of the irrigation systems through identification and quantification of the relative implicit values smallholder farmers confer to the key characteristics of irrigation facilities. We elicited preferences with discrete choice experiments, estimated willingness to pay for these attributes using random parameters logit models, and analyzed heuristics in the choice process using a series of latent class models. Our results show that farmers have clear preferences for higher watering frequency and no interest in sharing irrigation water with downstream users. We also observed that there are distinct groups of farmers with comparable but different levels of preference. The development of irrigation facilities in the water-scarce parts of Uzbekistan would benefit from careful consideration of the preferences of the target communities and targeting of the schemes based on the broad heterogeneities within the communities. This will aid in the maintenance of irrigation systems and, as a result, increase agricultural production and productivity.

Survey of Overwintering Trait in Chinese Rice Cultivars (Oryza Sativa L)

Overwintering (OW) rice can survive through the natural cold-winter field environment, exhibit a strong root system activity, sprout from rice tillering node in the following spring, and apparently reveal the cold resistance of rice during the whole growth stage. The successful utilization of cold-resistant rice is the most economical strategy for the cold-resistant rice cultivar breeding. This work aims to identify the OW rice for the future development of cold-resistant cultivars. Altogether 1034 Chinese rice cultivars were evaluated for their responses to low temperatures under the natural field cold-winter environment. The heading date (HD, d) and plant height (PH, cm) of 1034 rice cultivars ranged from 65 to 140 d in 2019, 65 to 150 d in 2020, ranged from 60 to 140 cm in 2019, 60 to 150 cm in 2020, and displayed slight difference between 2019 and 2020. Among them, altogether 262 (25.34%) Japonica rice cultivars could withstand cold to 4°C in December 2019 and distributed in 13 provinces of China, survive through the natural cold-winter field environment, and sprout from rice tillering node in March 2020. Only 24 (2.32%) japonica rice cultivars with resistance to 0°C in January 2021 distributed in seven provinces of China could also sprout from rice tillering node in March 2021. The present cold-resistant rice cultivars will provide beneficial breeding germplasm for future cold-resistant rice breeding and new strategies in elucidating the molecular mechanism of the cold resistance of rice.

Mammalian hibernation: a unique model for medical research

Hibernation is an adaptive behavior for some small animals to survive cold winter. Hibernating mammals usually down-regulate their body temperature from ~37°C to only a few degrees. During the evolution, mammalian hibernators have inherited unique strategies to survive extreme conditions that may lead to disease or death in humans and other non-hibernators. Hibernating mammals can not only tolerant deep hypothermia, hypoxia and anoxia, but also protect them against osteoporosis, muscle atrophy, heart arrhythmia and ischemia-reperfusion injury. Finding the molecular and regulatory mechanisms underlying these adaptations will provide novel ideas for treating related human diseases.