Spatial pattern of forest aboveground biomass and its environmental influencing factors in Qinling-Daba Mountains, central China.

Accurate estimation of forest aboveground biomass (AGB) is crucial for understanding and managing forest ecosystems in the context of global environmental change, and also provides a scientific basis for national and regional ecological planning and carbon emission reduction policies. In order to investigate the regional pattern of forest AGB and its influencing factors in central China, a total of 469 sample plots were measured along four sample transects and on six mountains in field survey. The results showed that: 1) Two longitudinal distribution patterns of forest AGB were found, and one was that the AGB in the Qinling Mountains and the Daba Moutains gradually decreased from east to west, and the other was that the AGB in the areas between the two mountains gradually increased from east to west.

Predicting the prognosis in patients with sepsis by an endoplasmic reticulum stress gene signature.

Background: Prognostic stratification of patients with sepsis is important for the development of individualized treatment strategies. Endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) plays a key role in sepsis. This study aimed to identify a set of genes related to ER stress to construct a predictive model for the prognosis of sepsis.

Correction: Exploring on the climate regionalization of Qinling-Daba mountains based on Geodetector-SVM model.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Exploring on the climate regionalization of Qinling-Daba mountains based on Geodetector-SVM model.

Qinling-Daba Mountains (QDM), which are located in central China, are considered as a significant climatic boundary delimiting north and south. However, the influence of complex topographic and climatic features makes it challenging to identify the exact location of the boundary, and different scholars delimit the boundary with significant differences. In addition, there is a gradual transition between climate zones, and no real dividing line exists.

Automatic classification of fine-scale mountain vegetation based on mountain altitudinal belt.

Vegetation mapping is of considerable significance to both geoscience and mountain ecology, and the improved resolution of remote sensing images makes it possible to map vegetation at a finer scale. While the automatic classification of vegetation has gradually become a research hotspot, real-time and rapid collection of samples has become a bottleneck. How to achieve fine-scale classification and automatic sample selection at the same time needs further study.

Clinical efficacy of laser combined with menstrual regulation in the treatment of female melasma: a retrospective study.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical efficacy of using a Medlite C6 Q-switch Nd:YAG laser combined with menstrual regulation-based traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in the treatment of female melasma. Forty cases of female patients with melasma, who were treated between December 2013 and December 2015 at the Jiangsu Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, were reviewed retrospectively. Twenty patients received Q-switch Nd:YAG 1064 nm laser treatments combined with menstrual regulation treatments (experimental group), and 20 patients were treated only with the laser (control group).

A preliminary study of the heating effect of the Tibetan Plateau.

The immense and towering Tibetan Plateau acts as a heating source and, thus, deeply shapes the climate of the Eurasian continent and even the whole world. However, due to the scarcity of meteorological observation stations and very limited climatic data, little is quantitatively known about the heating effect of the plateau and its implications. This paper firstly collects climate data (2001-2007) from 109 observation stations and MODIS-based estimated monthly mean temperature data in the plateau and the neighboring Sichuan Basin, and conducts correlation and simple linear regression to reveal the altitudinal pattern of temperature.